Untangling Sex and Gender Differences in Impression Management and Associated Autism Features in French Autistic Adults.
Wei Ai, Andrea Anchordoqui, Olena Bogdanova and 6 others
In 291 French autistic adults, the intention to mask autistic traits tracked more with gender identity than with assigned sex, while perceived ability to mask tracked with personal traits like warmth toward others.
Neither facet significantly altered the link between childhood and adult autism presentations.
Key findings
1Camouflaging and impression-management measures in autistic adults split into two separable facets: an 'intentional use' facet (how much one purposely engages in masking) and a 'self-efficacy' facet (how able one feels to do so), which were only weakly correlated (r = 0.30).
2Once gender identity was included in the model, assigned-sex lost most of its predictive weight for intentional use: autistic women and gender-diverse adults reported greater intentional use than autistic men. For self-efficacy, assigned-sex and gender identity contributed little; personal traits (higher communion, lower emotional vulnerability) were the strongest correlates.
3Neither IM intentional use nor IM self-efficacy significantly moderated the relationship between childhood (ADI-R) and adulthood (ADOS-2) autism presentations, in the full sample or in sex-stratified analyses.
Still to come
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
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What it does not show
Cross-sectional design with no replication sample; all associations are correlational and cannot support causal or developmental claims. Only verbal autistic adults without intellectual disabilities were included, so findings cannot be generalised to minimally or non-verbal autistic people or those with co-occurring intellectual disability. IM self-efficacy was measured by self-report, not by a performance-based task, so it may not reflect actual ability in real social situations. The ADOS-2 and ADI-R were used outside their intended diagnostic timeframes (adults and childhood recall respectively), and the ADOS-2 has been questioned for sensitivity to some autistic women's presentations. Sex-stratified moderation analyses had limited statistical power; the authors note the small subsample and caution against over-interpretation of the assigned-male self-efficacy finding. The sample is French only; the authors note that impression management may be shaped by culture-specific social norms, and findings may not transfer to other linguistic or cultural contexts.
Declared interests
Funded by Fondation FondaMental and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. The funding sources declared no role in study design, data collection, analysis, manuscript preparation, or the decision to submit. One author (Meng-Chuan Lai) received an editorial honorarium from SAGE Publications. No other conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not read the finding that autistic assigned-males with greater self-efficacy showed lower social-communication scores as evidence that masking reduces visible autism. The overall regression model for that subgroup was not statistically significant, the sample was small, and the authors explicitly caution against over-interpretation. The main moderation hypothesis (that masking weakens the childhood-to-adult autism link) was not supported in any analysis.
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