Pharmacological Interventions and an Emerging Understanding of the Need to Consider Sex Differences in Treatment Planning

There are currently no FDA-approved medications in the United States for treating the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). However, numerous investigational clinical trials are presently being conducted to research effective pharmacological treatments for these symptoms. Thus, the pharmacological treatment of ASD focuses on treating comorbid disorders with numerous medications currently being used to treat them in the ASD population. Furthermore, there are now no differences in the pharmacological treatment of males and females with ASD due to the majority of research in this field being conducted on males. Consequently, this chapter details the pharmacological treatment of individuals regardless of sex/gender, which is largely neglected in the literature. This chapter focuses on the current pharmacological treatment of the most commonly occurring comorbid disorders with ASD: mood disorders, anxiety disorders, OCD, and ADHD, with additional mention of eating disorders.