Restricted access

Research article

First published online July 18, 2019

Request permissions

Gender differences in self-reported camouflaging in autistic and non-autistic adults

Laura Hull https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8289-2158 [email protected], Meng-Chuan Lai, […], Simon Baron-Cohen, Carrie Allison, Paula Smith, KV Petrides, and William Mandy https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3564-5808+4View all authors and affiliations

Volume 24, Issue 2

https://doi.org/10.1177/1362361319864804

Abstract
References
Supplementary Material

Abstract

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 η² = 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 η² = 0.05) and Assimilation (partial η² = 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.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Bargiela S., Steward R., Mandy W. (2016). The experiences of late-diagnosed women with autism spectrum conditions: An investigation of the female autism phenotype. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 3281–3294.

Boorse J., Cola M., Plate S., Yankowitz L., Pandey J., Schultz R. T., Parish-Morris J. (2019). Linguistic markers of autism in girls: Evidence of a ‘blended phenotype’ during storytelling. Molecular Autism, 10, Article 14.

Cage E., Di Monaco J., Newell V. (2017). Experiences of autism acceptance and mental health in autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48, 473–484.

Cage E., Troxell-Whitman Z. (2019). Understanding the reasons, contexts and costs of camouflaging for autistic adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 1899–1911.

Cassidy S., Bradley L., Shaw R., Baron-Cohen S. (2018). Risk markers for suicidality in autistic adults. Molecular Autism, 9, Article 42.

Cohen J. (1988). Set correlation and contingency tables. Applied Psychological Measurement, 12, 425–434.

Cooper K., Smith L. G. E., Russell A. J. (2018). Gender identity in autism : Sex differences in social affiliation with gender groups. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48, 3995–4006.

Dean M., Harwood R., Kasari C. (2017). The art of camouflage: Gender differences in the social behaviors of girls and boys with autism spectrum disorder. Autism, 21, 678–689.

Dean M., Kasari C., Shih W., Frankel F., Whitney R., Landa R., . . . Harwood R. (2014). The peer relationships of girls with ASD at school: Comparison to boys and girls with and without ASD. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 55, 1218–1225.

Dewinter J., de Graaf H., Begeer S. (2017). Sexual orientation, gender identity, and romantic relationships in adolescents and adults with autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47(9), 1–8.

Duvekot J., Van der Ende J., Verhulst F. C., Slappendel G., Van Daalen E., Maras A., Greaves-Lord K. (2017). Factors influencing the probability of a diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder in girls versus boys. Autism, 21(6), 646–658.

Dworzynski K., Ronald A., Bolton P., Happé F. (2012). How different are girls and boys above and below the diagnostic threshold for autism spectrum disorders? Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 51, 788–797.

Faul F., Erdfelder E., Lang A.-G., Buchner A. (2007). G*Power 3: A flexible statistical power analysis program for the social, behavioral, and biomedical sciences. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 175–191.

Gould J., Ashton-Smith J. (2011). Missed diagnosis or misdiagnosis? Girls and women on the autism spectrum. Good Autism Practice, 12, 34–41.

Head A. M., McGillivray J. A., Stokes M. A. (2014). Gender differences in emotionality and sociability in children with autism spectrum disorders. Molecular Autism, 5, Article 19. Retrieved from http://www.biomedcentral.com/content/pdf/2040-2392-5-19.pdf

Hull L., Mandy W., Lai M., Baron-Cohen S., Allison C., Smith P., Petrides K. V. (2018). Development and validation of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q). Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49, 819–833.

Hull L., Petrides K. V., Allison C., Smith P., Baron-Cohen S., Lai M.-C., Mandy W. (2017). ‘Putting on my best normal’: Social camouflaging in adults with autism spectrum conditions. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 47, 2519–2534.

Hurley R. S. E., Losh M., Parlier M., Reznick J. S., Piven J. (2007). The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37(9), 1679–1690.

IBM Corp. (2015). IBM SPSS Statistics for Windows (Version 23.0). Armonk, NY: Author.

Kirkovski M., Enticott P. G., Fitzgerald P. B. (2013). A review of the role of female gender in autism spectrum disorders. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 43, 2584–2603.

Kopp S., Gillberg C. (1992). Girls with social deficits and learning problems: Autism, atypical Asperger syndrome or a variant of these conditions. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 1, 89–99.

Kreiser N. L., White S. W. (2014). ASD in females: Are we overstating the gender difference in diagnosis? Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review, 17, 67–84.

Lai M.-C., Lombardo M. V., Auyeung B., Chakrabarti B., Baron-Cohen S. (2015). Sex/gender differences and autism: Setting the scene for future research. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 54, 11–24.

Lai M.-C., Lombardo M. V., Chakrabarti B., Ruigrok A. N., Bullmore E. T., Suckling J., . . . Baron-Cohen S. (2018). Neural self-representation in autistic women and association with ‘compensatory camouflaging’. Autism, 23, 1210–1223.

Lai M.-C., Lombardo M. V., Pasco G., Ruigrok A. N. V., Wheelwright S. J., Sadek S. A., . . . Baron-Cohen S. (2011). A behavioral comparison of male and female adults with high functioning autism spectrum conditions. PLoS ONE, 6(6), e20835.

Lai M.-C., Lombardo M. V., Ruigrok A. N. V., Chakrabarti B., Auyeung B., Szatmari P., . . . Consortium M. A. (2017). Quantifying and exploring camouflaging in men and women with autism. Autism, 21, 690–702.

Lehnhardt F.-G., Falter C. M., Gawronski A., Pfeiffer K., Tepest R., Franklin J., Vogeley K. (2015). Sex-related cognitive profile in autism spectrum disorders diagnosed late in life: Implications for the female autistic phenotype. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 139–154.

Lehnhardt F.-G., Gawronski A., Pfeiffer K., Kockler H., Schilbach L., Vogeley K. (2013). The investigation and differential diagnosis of Asperger syndrome in adults. Deutsches Ärzteblatt International, 110, 755–763.

Lenhard W., Lenhard A. (2016). Calculation of effect sizes.

Livingston L. A., Colvert E., Bolton P., Happé F. (2019). Good social skills despite poor theory of mind: Exploring compensation in autism spectrum disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60, 102–110.

Livingston L. A., Happé F. (2017). Conceptualising compensation in neurodevelopmental disorders: Reflections from autism spectrum disorder. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 80, 729-742.

MacPhee D., Prendergast S. (2019). Room for improvement: Girls’ and boys’ home environments are still gendered. Sex Roles, 80, 332–346.

Nishiyama T., Suzuki M., Adachi K., Sumi S., Okada K., Kishino H., . . . Kanne S. M. (2014). Comprehensive comparison of self-administered questionnaires for measuring quantitative autistic traits in adults. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 44, 993–1007.

Parish-Morris J., Liberman M. Y., Cieri C., Herrington J. D., Yerys B. E., Bateman L., . . . Schultz R. T. (2017). Linguistic camouflage in girls with autism spectrum disorder. Molecular Autism, 8(1), Article 48.

Prendergast S., MacPhee D. (2018). Family resilience amid stigma and discrimination: A conceptual model for families headed by same-sex parents. Family Relations, 67, 26–40.

R Core Team. (2013). R: A language and environment for statistical processing. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing. Available from http://www.r-project.org/

Ratto A. B., Kenworthy L., Yerys B. E., Bascom J., Trubanova A., White S. W., . . . Anthony G. (2018). What about the girls? Sex-based differences in autistic traits and adaptive skills. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 48, 1698–1711.

Robinson E. B., Munir K., Munafò M. R., Hughes M., McCormick M. C., Koenen K. C. (2011). Stability of autistic traits in the general population: Further evidence for a continuum of impairment. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 50, 376–384.

Sasson N. J., Lam K. S. L., Childress D., Parlier M., Daniels J. L., Piven J. (2013). The Broad Autism Phenotype Questionnaire: Prevalence and diagnostic classification. Autism Research, 6, 134–143.

Sedgewick F., Hill V., Yates R., Pickering L., Pellicano E. (2015). Gender differences in the social motivation and friendship experiences of autistic and non-autistic adolescents. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 46, 1297–1306.

Shattuck P. T., Durkin M., Maenner M., Newschaffer C., Mandell D. S., Wiggins L., . . . Cuniff C. (2009). Timing of identification among children with an autism spectrum disorder: Findings from a population-based surveillance study. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 48, 474–483.

Tierney S., Burns J., Kilbey E. (2016). Looking behind the mask: Social coping strategies of girls on the autistic spectrum. Research in Autism Spectrum Disorders, 23, 73–83.

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

aut864804_lay_abstract.pdf
505.96 KB

aut864804_supplemental_figures.pdf
318.14 KB

View full text|Download PDF

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.