Autism Spectrum Conditions and Friendship in a Turkish Speaking Sample

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a pervasive neurodevelopmental disorder which includes difficulties in social communication and interaction and also shows restricted, repetitive behaviors. Nowadays, ASD is no longer defined in a sharp distance from normality. This means that every individual with normal intelligence can have some aspects of autistic traits. It is also a fact that individuals with ASD have difficulties in their friendships. The current study aims to find out the differences between educational fields and gender on Autism Spectrum Quotient (AQ) and Cambridge Friendship Questionnaire (FQ). 256 Eastern Mediterranean University students (148 from sciences and 108 from non-sciences completed a demographic information form and two scales (AQ and FQ) to examine the autism spectrum conditions (ASC) and friendship. Results showed that students who were enrolled in a science based program scored higher on AQ than students who were enrolled non-sciences programs. However, there was no gender difference on AQ. Results, further, showed no difference between the types of fields (i.e., sciences vs non-sciences) students were enrolled in and scores obtained on the FQ scale. However, female students scored higher than male students on FQ. Keywords: Autism Spectrum Disorder, friendship, educational fields, gender.