The hidden cost of fitting in: social camouflage in adolescents with social communication disorder

IntroductionThis study compared social camouflaging in adolescents with and without social communication disorder (SCD) and examined whether camouflaging differedby gender.MethodsThe sample comprised 120 adolescents aged 14, 18 years from the Mashhad- Marghab region of Fars province, Iran, including 60 adolescents diag-nosed with SCD and 60 adolescents without SCD matched on age, gender, andeducational level. Social camouflaging was assessed using the CamouflagingAutistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q), which captures compensation, masking,and assimilation. Data were analyzed using two-way analysis of variance andmultivariate analysis of variance.ResultsThe findings showed that adolescents withSCD reported significantly higher overall social camouflaging than adolescentswithout SCD. Male adolescents also reported higher camouflaging than femaleadolescents. At the subscale level, adolescents with SCD scored significantlyhigher on compensation, masking, and assimilation, and males scored higherthan females across all three subscales. These findings suggest that adolescentswith SCD may rely more heavily on camouflaging strategies to manage language-based social demands.ConclusionGiven growing evidence that camouflaging is associatedwith anxiety, depression, exhaustion, and identity strain in neurodevelopmentalpopulations, the findings are relevant to current work on language, emotions, andmental health. Greater clinical attention to the emotional burden of camouflagingin adolescents with SCD may help inform assessment and intervention.