Autism Quotient (AQ; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001)
The AQ is a 50-item self-report questionnaire assessing autistic traits in adults. Participants respond to statements such as “I am fascinated by dates” and “I find social situations easy” by indicating if they “definitely agree”, “slightly agree”, slightly disagree” or “definitely disagree”. Around half of the items are reverse scored, with responses indicating the presence of an autistic trait scoring 1, therefore scores range from 0-50 with scores of 32 and above indicative of the likely presence of ASC. The AQ has good test-retest reliability (r =.70, Baron-Cohen et al., 2001) and has been used to measure autistic traits in the general population as well as clinical samples. Within the AQ, items relate to five subtypes of autistic traits; social skills, attention switching, attention to detail, communication and imagination.

Statistical analysis

Results were analysed using SPSS 24, with descriptive procedures run to determine means and standard deviations, followed by Pearson correlations to reveal intercorrelations between measures as well as to determine the proportion of participants scoring above the clinical cut-off on measures where possible. An additional t-test was conducted to determine if the mean AQ score of the sample was significantly different to that reported elsewhere for the general population. Mediation analysis allowed examination of indirect relationships between anxiety, ASC and associated symptoms such as IU and SOR. The mediating effects of SOR and IU were investigated using the Baron and Kenny (1986) four step method of mediation. Where Step Four results in both predictors remaining significant, a Sobel test can be conducted to determine whether the reduction in the effect of the IV was significant, therefore indicating a significant mediation effect.

Sensitivity analysis and Missing Data

Conservative a priori sensitivity analysis conducted using an online statistics calculator (Soper, 2019) demonstrated that multiple regression with a minimum sample size of 97 would achieve a power of 0.8 (α=.005) with at least medium effect sizes f2=.15. Regarding missing data, participants with missing data for more than two items in each questionnaire were removed before the analysis. Of those remaining, the average score for items on the corresponding questionnaire was used to fill in missing data for all measures apart from the AQ, where a missing item was assumed to have scored 0 due to the binary nature of the scoring system.
Results

Descriptive Statistics

Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations for each measure are displayed in Table 1, as well as the proportion of participants who scored on or above clinical cut-off where possible. All measures were significantly correlated with each other at p <.001. The mean AQ score for this sample (M =25.18, SD =8.21) was significantly higher than the average female score in the general population used in the original paper (M =15.40, SD =5.70; Baron-Cohen et al., 2001), t (359)=22.59, p <.00. Additionally, 76 participants (21.1%) scored on or above the clinical cut-off on the AQ, indicating the likely presence of ASC, compared to 1% of females in the general population (Baron-Cohen et al., 2001).