Nel Jacques, Spedding Maxine, Malcolm-Smith Susan
University of Cape Town, South Africa.
Autism. 2025 May 30;29(10):13623613251335472. doi: 10.1177/13623613251335472.
Autistic 'social camouflaging' research is proliferating. However, the term is multi-definitional. Our integrative systematic review (CRD42022324957) pursued a single-framework, qualitative meta-synthesis of camouflaging in autistic adults. We report specifically on different types of camouflaging strategies and the contextual factors that moderate them. A total of 2346 articles were extracted from online databases, 'Connected Papers' and citation searching - reflecting qualitative data from diagnostically confirmed, or self-identifying, autistic individuals. The results of 28 studies were coded and thematically synthesised, and included 2669 men, women and non-binary individuals above the age of 16. We noted six types of strategies and four contextual factors that modulate them. 'Imitation' played a notable role in facilitating further learning and development of camouflaging strategies, thus shifting one from behavioural suppression to sophisticated compensations. The results encourage researchers to place camouflaging data within this (or other) frameworks. Limitations include data reflecting only a subset of the autistic community, skewed towards women and the United Kingdom, raising questions about the impact that gender and UK culture has on our current understanding of camouflaging.Lay abstractResearch into autistic 'social camouflaging' is gaining momentum. However, with so many different definitions, the term needs better clarification. We thus reviewed existing articles that discuss camouflaging, in order to bring all of the different understandings of adult autistic camouflaging together into a single framework. This article focuses on findings related to different types of camouflaging , and the types of situations that help or hinder individuals when they use such strategies. After screening 2346 articles (which were listed on online research databases) - we arrived at 28 articles that were included in this study. Data were based on the personal reports of 2669 adults (over the age of 16 years) with confirmed, or self-identified, autism. These reports were in English, qualitative, published papers. We noted six types of camouflaging strategies, and four situational factors that influence them. 'Imitation' was noted as a key means by which strategies develop. The results encourage researchers to build on frameworks such as ours. We also found that much of the sample consisted of women from the United Kingdom, and thus, there is a question of how much influence UK culture has on our current picture of camouflaging.
关于自闭症“社交伪装”的研究正在激增。然而,这个术语有多种定义。我们的综合系统评价(CRD42022324957)采用单一框架,对自闭症成年人的伪装进行定性元分析。我们特别报告了不同类型的伪装策略以及调节这些策略的背景因素。通过在线数据库、“Connected Papers”和引文检索共提取了2346篇文章,这些文章反映了经诊断确认或自我认定为自闭症个体的定性数据。对28项研究的结果进行了编码和主题综合,研究对象包括2669名16岁以上的男性、女性和非二元性别人士。我们指出了六种策略类型和调节这些策略的四个背景因素。“模仿”在促进伪装策略的进一步学习和发展方面发挥了显著作用,从而使个体从行为抑制转向复杂的补偿行为。研究结果鼓励研究人员将伪装数据置于这个(或其他)框架内。局限性包括数据仅反映了自闭症群体的一个子集,且偏向于女性和英国人群,这引发了关于性别和英国文化对我们当前对伪装的理解有何影响的问题。
摘要
关于自闭症“社交伪装”的研究正在兴起。然而,由于定义众多,这个术语需要更清晰的阐释。因此,我们回顾了现有的关于伪装的文章,以便将对成年自闭症患者伪装的所有不同理解整合到一个单一框架中。本文重点关注与不同类型伪装相关的研究结果,以及在个体使用这些策略时起到帮助或阻碍作用的情境类型。在筛选了2346篇(列于在线研究数据库中的)文章后,我们最终确定了28篇纳入本研究的文章。数据基于2669名(16岁以上)经确诊或自我认定为自闭症的成年人的个人报告。这些报告均为英文的定性发表论文。我们指出了六种伪装策略类型以及影响它们的四个情境因素。“模仿”被视为策略发展的关键手段。研究结果鼓励研究人员在我们这样的框架基础上继续开展研究。我们还发现,大部分样本由来自英国的女性组成,因此,英国文化对我们当前伪装认知的影响程度存在疑问。