Exploring the construct validity of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire: A factor analytic study

Autistic people describe having to mask or 'camouflage' their autistic selves to fit into certain social settings. Many researchers have used the CAT-Q to measure the extent to which autistic people engage in camouflaging. However, some researchers have questioned whether the CAT-Q measures camouflaging or whether it measures other related experiences and behaviours associated with social anxiety, fear of being negatively judged or social autistic traits. In our study, we analysed the CAT-Q to check whether it is indeed similar to or different from these related experiences. To do this, we asked 308 autistic adults to complete the CAT-Q and questionnaires about social anxiety, fear of being negatively judged and autistic social features. Then, we put all the CAT-Q items together with the items from each of the other measures in three separate analyses (called factor analyses) to see how the items would group together. These analyses showed us whether camouflaging behaviours are distinguishable and different from, or cluster together with, these other experiences. We found that most of CAT-Q items grouped together separately from the other measures' items, suggesting that camouflaging differs from these other related experiences. Only some items from one of the CAT-Q subscales clustered together with some social anxiety and autistic items, suggesting these may need to be teased out better in the future. Generally, our findings show that we can use the CAT-Q to measure camouflaging behaviours among autistic people.