Welcome to the Autism, ADHD podcast. I am so happy that you join me today. I want to take a moment and ask for your help. Please take just a second and give the podcast a five-star review. This will help me continue the podcast and keep bringing you helpful

information. Thanks so much again for taking the time to give that five-star review. Now let's get

started. Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us today. We have an extra special podcast episode on puberty.

I am so excited that Professor Mayung has joined us today. So I'm going to go ahead and introduce her.

She is a consultant, pediatric endocrinologist, an honorary associate professor at the University of Liverpool, UK.

She is an active researcher with over 250 publications and is presented at more than 150 scientific meetings.

She's the author of a journey with Brendan, documenting life with her autistic son as both

a mother and a pediatrician. She is also the author of me and my hormones, What Can Go Wrong,

a book that explains the complex science of hormones and how hormones affect our health,

well-being, growth, and puberty. Welcome.

I'm so glad you're here today. Thank you so much for having me, Holly. We are going to be

talking about a sensitive topic today. So for those parents who are watching or listening and have

your kids with you, you may want to stop it right now

and come back to it and review it prior to sharing it with them, just in case they're not

quite ready for the information. Okay, are you ready to dive in? Yes, definitely. All right,

let's do it. Tell us about normal puberty. How does all of that work?

So I'll talk about what normal puberty is and when it starts and what we notice when

children starts to go into regular puberty. Now, the age of starting puberty can vary. In girls, it's usually

from about 9 to 13 and in boys similarly. Girls can start early puberty at 8 years old, but anything,

any sort of particular signs of puberty like pubic hair or breast development

before the age of age should probably be checked out by the doctor. And the first signs of puberty

can vary as well. In girls, we might notice breast buds. These are signs. I'll talk about symptoms later on.

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