Am I Autistic? Utility of the Girls Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Condition as an Autism Assessment in Adult Women

This publication is included in the Autistic Autism Scholarship Project. two authors of this publication are identified as autistic in the project.

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Brown, C. M., Attwood, T., Garnett, M. S., & Stokes, M. A. (2020). Am I Autistic? Utility of the Girls Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Condition as an Autism Assessment in Adult Women. Autism in Adulthood, 2(3), 216-226. https://doi.org/10.1089/aut.2019.0054

Publication date: 16 Jun 2020 Added to AutiHub: 7 Sep 2026 Type: Article Article language: English
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Authors

Publication authors
4
Publication authors identified as autistic
2 / 4 (50.0%)
  1. Claire M. Brown
  2. Tony Attwood *
  3. Michelle Sarah Garnett *
  4. Mark A Stokes

Abstract

This study aimed to explore the structure of a modified version of the Girls Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Condition (GQ-ASC; Attwood et al. 2011) to test its utility as an autism screening measure for adult women. We recruited 672 cisgender and trans women aged between 18 and 72 online. The sample contained 350 autistic women (M age = 36.21, standard deviation [SD] = 10.10) and 322 nonautistic women (M age = 34.83, SD = 9.93), screened using the Autism Quotient. A principal component analysis and parallel analysis revealed a five-component solution that accounted for 40.40% of the total variance. The extracted components appear to be consistent with what is known about the way girls and women display their autistic traits and interpreted as (1) Imagination and play: Describes interest in fantasy, fiction, and reflection on the quality and content of imaginative play in childhood. (2) Camouflaging: Describes effortful attempts to reduce the visibility of autistic traits. (3) Sensory sensitivities: Describes sensory processing hyper- and hyposensitivities across various modalities. (4) Socializing: Describes barriers to social understanding and participation. (5) Interests: Describes age-advanced and nonstereotypically feminine interests. We observed significant differences between autistic and nonautistic women across all extracted components, and the total score. A receiver operating characteristic analysis indicated an excellent level of discrimination. When applying a cutoff score of 57, the GQ-ASC correctly identified 80.0% of cases. The modified GQ-ASC is an effective and highly discriminant screening tool for use in adult autistic women. It provides valuable insight into the shared features and experiences of this underrecognized and underrepresented subset of the autistic community.

Bibliography cited by this reference

Cited references are imported from external metadata sources when they are available. The list may be partial.

Cited bibliography overview

These indicators describe the bibliography cited by this publication. An author name is counted each time it appears in one cited reference, so the same person can be counted more than once. Names not yet linked to an author already present in AutiHub are treated as unknown, not as non-autistic. Last computed: 12 Sep 2026 01:04.

Cited references
39
With a DOI
35
Without a DOI, from raw bibliography text
4
3 / 39 (7.7%) cited references include at least one author identified as autistic.
References with data to complete
0 / 39 (0.0%)
References with detected author names
39 / 39 (100.0%)
Without detected author names
0
Without a structured title
0
Without a stable identifier
4
References with raw author names still to review
0
References with external metadata lookup issues
0
These indicators apply to cited references displayed on this page, after technical duplicates have been merged. A reference without a DOI can still support author statistics when a title and author names are available.
Author names detected in the cited bibliography
143
From DOI or external metadata
143
From validated raw bibliography text
0
Raw names already validated
0
Raw names still to review
0
66 / 143 (46.2%) names are linked to an author already present in AutiHub. 77 / 143 (53.8%) names are not yet linked.
Names linked to a person identified as autistic
4 / 143 (2.8%)
Calculated across all author names detected in the cited bibliography. Among names linked to an author already present in AutiHub: 4 / 66 (6.1%). Distinct people identified as autistic: 4 / 115 (3.5%).
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