“My name is Monica Weedon. I am currently a junior here at the University of Utah studying biology and political science.
I have been working on a study with Dr. Paul Carbon and Dr. Kathleen Campbell. We have been studying screening for autism in girls, specifically using the POSI, which stands for the Parents’ Observation of Social Interactions.
This is a newer autism screening, where the answers to the questions are: ‘always, most of the time, sometimes, rarely, or never.’ That’s compared to other screeners, where the answers are just, ‘yes’ and ‘no.’ What we think is that with those binary screeners, we miss a lot of the females who have subtler symptoms and manifestations of autism, compared to males who may have more stereotypical manifestations of the symptoms of autism.
We have a big cohort of patients, and we looked through their medical charts, making sure they have an autism diagnosis, making sure that they were screened with the POSI. Then, we looked at when they were diagnosed and when they were screened with the POSI. We found a lot more girls than with other screeners. So, the ratio is 3.5:1 with regular binary screeners. But with our screener, we have found that our ratio is closer to 2:1. So for every two boys, we find one girl, which is a big difference. We’re hoping this means that with the implementation of this screener and screeners that are similar to this one, we will be able to find more girls with autism.
I actually have autism. Dr. Carbon was one of my doctors when I was younger. He brought up this study to me that he was working on, and he figured that as a self-advocate, as someone connected to the community, it would interest me, and it does.
It’s really ground-breaking research. Through our literature review, we found there are no other studies that have really focused on females with autism, finding them and screening them.
If a female does not get detected by the screener, does not get diagnosed with autism, but she does still have it as a child, they are not able to go through school with the accommodations they need. It could have a great impact on their mental health and on the way they see themselves. They’re struggling.
I was lucky enough to be diagnosed early in life, but other people are not as lucky. Females are often diagnosed with autism as young adults, when all of the help that they could have gotten as children, they can’t get that anymore. So, I’m really grateful. I think this is really good work.”
— Monica Weedon, 2026 Research on Capitol Hill presenter
