ABSTRACT
Friendships are a crucial part of our development as social individuals, from childhood through to adulthood, and can make happier and healthier across the lifespan. Among neurotypical girls, friendships are more supportive and less defined by power struggles than those of boys. Young women’s friendships are based more on talking, especially about personal problems, and emotional sharing than young men’s, who instead focus on shared activities. Differences in friendship behaviours by gender may be a result of different socialization patterns. Girls on the autism spectrum also had mostly neurotypical female friends, while autistic boys were generally rejected by neurotypical boys. In special schools, teachers found that adolescent boys and girls on the autism spectrum differed with respect to their peer relationships, particularly in regard to their experiences of conflict within these relationships, with girls having closer and more secure friendships than boys, but also experiencing more conflict.
