UCL Discovery Stage
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery Stage

A comparison of self-report and discrepancy measures of camouflaging: Exploring sex differences in diagnosed autistic versus high autistic trait young adults

Milner, Victoria; Colvert, Emma; Mandy, William; Happé, Francesca; (2022) A comparison of self-report and discrepancy measures of camouflaging: Exploring sex differences in diagnosed autistic versus high autistic trait young adults. Autism Research 10.1002/aur.2873. (In press). Green open access

[thumbnail of A comparison of self report and discrepancy measures of camouflaging.pdf]
Preview
Text
A comparison of self report and discrepancy measures of camouflaging.pdf - Published Version

Download (392kB) | Preview

Abstract

Camouflaging describes masking or compensating for autistic traits and/or related difficulties. Some evidence suggests autistic females camouflage more than autistic males, potentially contributing to delayed or missed diagnosis. Studies predominantly adopt self-report measures of camouflaging, potentially reflecting a person's intent to camouflage without accurately measuring effectiveness (i.e., success in fulfilling the intended effect of minimizing the appearance of autistic traits) of camouflaging. Discrepancy scores between underlying cognitive difficulties (e.g., theory of mind) and observed autistic traits (henceforth camoToM ), or between self-reported autistic traits and observed autistic traits (henceforth camoSRS ), may provide a more accurate measure of camouflaging effectiveness. Three measures of camouflaging administered to autistic males (n = 46) and females (n = 40), and adults with equally high levels of autistic traits but no diagnosis (n = 45 males, n = 43 females) recruited from a large population-based sample were compared. Self-report measures of camouflaging were significantly correlated with camoSRS scores only. Both discrepancy scores were correlated with each other. Adults with high autistic traits, but no diagnosis, had higher discrepancy camouflaging scores than diagnosed adults, but self-reported scores were similar. Diagnosed females scored higher than diagnosed males across all camouflaging measures, but no sex difference occurred in the high trait group. This might indicate that autistic females have higher intentions and greater effectiveness when camouflaging, compared with autistic males. For camoSRS only, high trait males scored significantly higher than diagnosed males; no group difference occurred for females. These results suggest that, despite all participants intending to camouflage to some extent, effective camouflaging as measured by discrepancy scores is higher in undiagnosed high autistic trait individuals. One interpretation is that effective camouflaging reduces the likelihood of autism diagnosis in males and females with high autistic traits.

Type: Article
Title: A comparison of self-report and discrepancy measures of camouflaging: Exploring sex differences in diagnosed autistic versus high autistic trait young adults
Location: United States
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1002/aur.2873
Publisher version: https://doi.org/10.1002/aur.2873
Language: English
Additional information: © 2022 The Authors. Autism Research published by International Society for Autism Research and Wiley Periodicals LLC. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
Keywords: Autism diagnosis, autistic camouflaging, autistic traits, female autism, sex differences
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > Div of Psychology and Lang Sciences > Clinical, Edu and Hlth Psychology
URI: https://discovery-pp.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10161851
Downloads since deposit
4,648Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item