Purpose: Self-diagnosed autistic people are under-represented in autism research. Camouflaging is gaining traction in autism research and is heavily associated with females. Camouflaging has been linked to difficulty being diagnosed and negative health effects. The current study explored self-reported camouflaging, social anxiety, and autistic traits in different autistic people.
Methods: A sample of 203 participants were recruited (including self-diagnosed, professionally diagnosed, and non-autistic people) through online advertisements. A Qualtrics questionnaire was used to collect demographic information and measures of social camouflaging (CAT-Q), social anxiety (LSAS), and autistic traits (AQ- IO).
Results: All three scales scores were significantly positively correlated with each other within the sample. The study found that self-diagnosed participants differed significantly on all measures from non-autistic ones, but did not differ from professionally diagnosed participants. Self-diagnosed participants scored significantly higher on two subscales of the CATÂQ (Masking and Assimilation). There was no effect of gender within the autistic group (professionally and self-diagnosed).
Conclusions: The results show the importance of including self-diagnosed samples in research and investigating perceptions of autistic people’s camouflaging efforts.
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