Background: Camouflaging (also known as masking/compensating) is when people with autism spectrum disorders attempt to hide or minimize their autistic traits/symptoms to appear more neurotypical or «normal». A typical example of camouflaging is maintaining eye contact during conversations as this is often an issue for people on the autism spectrum. Camouflaging is theorized to be one of the reasons why women are diagnosed significantly less than men, which makes understanding camouflaging very important for both clinical institutions and society in general.
Aim: To explore whether there are gender differences in camouflaging behavior among people on the autism spectrum.
Design and methods: Based on the Pubmed database, a systematic literature review was utilized to answer the research question, which is a research method that systematically gathers and presents all relevant research papers from a topic of interest. This study found seven scientific papers, which are then presented and summarized.
Results: The findings from these seven studies showed that there are gender differences in how autistic people camouflage. All seven papers reported that women on the autism spectrum camouflaged more than men on the spectrum. These findings were statistically significant. There was no correlation between camouflaging and age, and only one study found a positive correlation between camouflaging and higher IQ.
Conclusion: Even though there were weaknesses in some of the studies, it shows an interesting result that can be used by clinical institutions and other institutions to further understand and give support to people with autism that camouflaging.
Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, camouflaging, gender differences.Background: Camouflaging (also known as masking/compensating) is when people with autism spectrum disorders attempt to hide or minimize their autistic traits/symptoms to appear more neurotypical or «normal». A typical example of camouflaging is maintaining eye contact during conversations as this is often an issue for people on the autism spectrum. Camouflaging is theorized to be one of the reasons why women are diagnosed significantly less than men, which makes understanding camouflaging very important for both clinical institutions and society in general.
Aim: To explore whether there are gender differences in camouflaging behavior among people on the autism spectrum.
Design and methods: Based on the Pubmed database, a systematic literature review was utilized to answer the research question, which is a research method that systematically gathers and presents all relevant research papers from a topic of interest. This study found seven scientific papers, which are then presented and summarized.
Results: The findings from these seven studies showed that there are gender differences in how autistic people camouflage. All seven papers reported that women on the autism spectrum camouflaged more than men on the spectrum. These findings were statistically significant. There was no correlation between camouflaging and age, and only one study found a positive correlation between camouflaging and higher IQ.
Conclusion: Even though there were weaknesses in some of the studies, it shows an interesting result that can be used by clinical institutions and other institutions to further understand and give support to people with autism that camouflaging.
Keywords: Autism spectrum disorders, camouflaging, gender differences
