The development of gender identity in the autistic child.

The Michigan Gender Identity Test (MGIT) was administered to 30 autistic children to determine whether autistic children could demonstrate a sense of gender identity. The results of the MGIT were correlated with other developmental indices obtained from the Alpern-Boll Developmental Profile. From this sample of autistics, a significant relationship was found between gender identity and mental age, chronological age, communication skills, physical skills, social skills, self-help skills and academic (cognitive skills.