Autistic traits in southern Brazilian college students: tracking road autism phenotype in the academia / Traços autisticos em estudantes do colégio do sul do Brasil: rastreamento do fenótipo do autismo amplo na academia

Introduction: Autism is considered a clinical condition distinct from the general population, while autistic traits may be continuously distributed across the population and referred to as "broader autism phenotype (BAP)." Few studies currently address autistic traits in the general population, and little is known about the relationship between the psychiatric condition and the BAP. Objectives: This study aimed to evaluate the prevalence of autistic traits in a sample of undergraduate students. Methods: An online survey was applied containing sociodemographic questions and the Autism-Spectrum Quotient (AQ), a widely used scale to quantify autistic traits in the general population. The AQ has 50 items, divided into five subscales consisting of 10 items each that assess domains of cognitive strengths and difficulties related to ASD. Results: A total of 1.167 students answered the questionnaire, with a female predominance (70%). The most representative higher educational areas were the Health Sciences (54%), followed by Engineering (12.3%). A total of 44 participants (3.8%) reached the AQ cut-off of 32+ points, indicating the presence of autistic traits, 25 (54.3%) female, and 21 (45.6%) male students. The higher academic areas with the highest frequency of autistic traits were linguistics, letters, and arts (12.5%), followed by engineering (6.9%). Conclusion: Musicians, scientists, and mathematicians have higher AQ scores than students from different areas. The investigation of autistic traits in the general population might help understand the autism spectrum itself and discuss autism from an educational viewpoint.