Validation en Langue française du Girls Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Condition (fGQ-ASC) Chez Des Femmes Adultes

CONTEXT AND JUSTIFICATION OF THE RESEARCH Autism spectrum disorders (ASD) are currently diagnosed at a rate of approximately 3 males per 1 female, while evidence suggests the rate may be 1.8 males per 1.2 females. It has been shown that affected women receive an autism diagnosis on average 5 years later than men. This delay is associated with deleterious educational, psychological and physical health consequences in these women (Rynkiewicz & Łucka 2018).

Currently, there are a number of obstacles that delay or prevent women with ASD from accessing diagnosis and specialized support. These include, in particular, gendered assumptions about how ASD manifests depending on the gender of the person concerned, a tendency for clinicians to attribute female autistic traits to causes other than ASD, measures of standardized ASD assessments that may not be sensitive enough to identify ASD females, and finally a demonstrated greater tendency among ASD females to camouflage or mask autistic traits in order to blend in in social situations.

It is in this context that Attwood and colleagues (2011) developed the Girl Questionnaire for Autism Spectrum Conditions (GQ-ASC) to address these fundamental gaps in the early identification and measurement of female ASD symptoms. . In order to specifically and reliably assess the presentation of ASD in affected women, the initial stages and item development of this questionnaire were constructed and generated from the authors' extensive clinical expertise (Attwood et al. 2011). as diagnosticians. The questionnaire was then validated in English in adult women with ASD through rigorous analyzes (Brown et al. 2020).

The GQ-ASC is presented as a self-questionnaire with 29 items to be rated on a 4-point Likert scale (1 = Completely disagree, 2 = Mostly disagree, 3 = Mostly agree, 4 = Completely agree. agree) which assess clinical characteristics specific to the adult female presentation of ASD in the dimensions (five) of imagination and play, camouflage, sensoriality, social situations and interests. The original English version of the GQ-ASC makes it possible to identify 80.0% of women with ASD based on a cut-off score. This self-questionnaire also presents robust psychometric properties, including significant correlations between the five dimensions measured and with other questionnaires assessing ASD (Brown et al., 2020).

To date, several studies have relevantly used the GQ-ASC in populations of adult ASD women, but none in French. We make the main hypothesis that the French version of this questionnaire (fGQ-ASC) presents good predictive validity for the diagnosis of ASD in adult women over 18 years old and of French mother tongue. We also formulate the following hypotheses: 1) the fGQ-ASC presents poor predictive validity for the diagnosis of ASD in adult men over 18 years of age and of French mother tongue, 2) the fGQ-ASC scores are significantly higher higher in these women than in non-ASD women, ASD men and non-ASD men, 3) the fGQ-ASC presents satisfactory psychometric characteristics in adult ASD women over 18 years old and native speakers French.