In one sentence
A critical review of 389 studies argues that “camouflaging” in autism research is not clearly or consistently defined or measured, which weakens what questionnaires can tell families and clinicians.
What the researchers did
The authors reviewed 389 papers on camouflaging — strategies some autistic people use to hide autistic traits and fit social expectations. They checked whether terms such as masking, compensation, and impression management were defined the same way, whether studies cited shared foundations, and whether the widely used Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q) measures what it claims. They also looked at reliability, validity, and who appears in study samples.
What they found
- Terminology was inconsistent: the same words were used as synonyms or for different ideas, often without clear definitions.
- CAT-Q reliability was strong, but validity was mixed — scores appeared influenced by factors such as social anxiety and were not autism-specific.
- Approaches that compare self-report with informant report were also methodologically questioned.
- Samples overrepresented autistic women diagnosed in adulthood and underrepresented autistic people with intellectual or language disabilities or higher support needs.
What this means for families and therapists
- Treat popular claims about “masking scores” cautiously; ask what a tool actually measures.
- Lived experience of masking remains real and costly even when research measures are imperfect — see our autistic burnout guide.
- Findings may not generalize to autistic people with higher support needs who are missing from many camouflaging samples.
Limitations and what we don't know yet
- This is a review of methods, not a new measurement study.
- It diagnoses problems more than it delivers a replacement definition or gold-standard tool.
- Diversity gaps in the literature remain.
This is a plain-language summary of Camouflaging and autism: Conceptualisation and methodological issues by Arnold W.M., Bitsika V., Sharpley C.F., Autism (2026). Source license: CC-BY. It is not medical advice — talk to a qualified clinician before changing therapy.