Awareness, empowerment and research for female autism beyond Europe

Background For the last years there has been a raise in the awareness and research of female autism spectrum disorders. Europe has the first project for this population but little efforts have been made beyond Europe for... [ view full abstract ]

Background
For the last years there has been a raise in the awareness and research of female autism spectrum disorders. Europe has the first project for this population but little efforts have been made beyond Europe for female with autism spectrum disorders(ASD).
Method
We report an experience of a one year online community project for sensibilization, awareness, empowerment and research led by professionals working voluntarily in collaboration with women. Objectives were: on-line connections, provide cientific and life experience information, research from the experiences from professionals, training, visibilization and empowerment of women with ASD.
Results
For online comunity 4 facebook groups where created for women, families and professionals. For information a web page was created to disseminate research and clinical findings, as well as women experiences and sensibilizations campaigns about stereotypes. For research we analized data from 60 surveys of experiences of professionals. For training we organized a course led by an international expert from the European project where more tan 100 professionals from 25 cities and 4 countries assisted. For the empowerment project we organized a Symposium of 10 women with ASD from different countries.
Conclusions
Though there were a lot of challenge and limitations, social networks were crucial for creating a community and generating awareness and empowerment for female autism. Though many efforts continue to be crucial in assessment, identification, treatment and empowerment, best results might came from women, professionals and communities working together .

The authors declared no potential conflict of interest As an ethic statement we report this paper to be a reflection of our work, no names of individuals, or clinical data was used in this paper. This project was not funded... [ view full abstract ]

The authors declared no potential conflict of interest
As an ethic statement we report this paper to be a reflection of our work, no names of individuals, or clinical data was used in this paper.
This project was not funded by any institutions and was done by professionals working ad honorem in collaborattion with women with asd. ( voluntarly)