Journal
AUTISM
Volume 24, Issue 2, Pages 352-363Publisher
SAGE PUBLICATIONS LTD
DOI: 10.1177/1362361319864804
Keywords
adult; autism; camouflaging; compensation; females; gender differences; masking
Categories
Funding
- O'Brien Scholars Programme within the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH)
- O'Brien Scholars Programme within the Child and Youth Mental Health Collaborative at the Hospital for Sick Children, Toronto
- Academic Scholars Award from the Department of Psychiatry, University of Toronto
- Slaight Family Child and Youth Mental Health Innovation Fund (CAMH Foundation)
- Catherine and Maxwell Meighen Foundation (CAMH Foundation)
- Ontario Brain Institute via the Province of Ontario Neurodevelopmental Disorders (POND) Network, Women's Xchange
- University of Toronto Department of Psychiatry Excellence Fund
- Women's Xchange
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Social camouflaging describes the use of strategies to compensate for and mask autistic characteristics during social interactions. A newly developed self-reported measure of camouflaging (Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire) was used in an online survey to measure gender differences in autistic (n = 306) and non-autistic adults (n = 472) without intellectual disability for the first time. Controlling for age and autistic-like traits, an interaction between gender and diagnostic status was found: autistic females demonstrated higher total camouflaging scores than autistic males (partial eta(2) = 0.08), but there was no camouflaging gender difference for non-autistic people. Autistic females scored higher than males on two of three Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire subscales: Masking (partial eta(2) = 0.05) and Assimilation (partial eta(2) = 0.06), but not on the Compensation subscale. No differences were found between non-autistic males and females on any subscale. No differences were found between non-binary individuals and other genders in either autistic or non-autistic groups, although samples were underpowered. These findings support previous observations of greater camouflaging in autistic females than males and demonstrate for the first time no self-reported gender difference in non-autistic adults.
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