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Celebrity

15th Nov 2021

Christine McGuinness reveals she has been diagnosed with autism

Ellen Fitzpatrick

She reveals the news in her new book.

Model Christine McGuinness has revealed that she has been diagnosed with autism after her three children were also told they had the condition.

Revealing the news in her new book, she said that her husband Paddy McGuinness had suspected she had autism for years.

In her new book Christine McGuinness: A Beautiful Nightmare, she admitted that her diagnosis wasn’t a complete shock but it was something she found emotional to accept.

She explained that she was diagnosed back in August after she and Paddy had been invited to meet Sir Simon Baron-Cohen, the director of Cambridge University’s Autism Research Centre.

In an extract published by The Mirror, she wrote: “I have been confirmed as autistic. It’s strange, but I’ve noticed there are little hints throughout my life that I’m autistic and more like my children than I ever could have imagined.

“My issues with food, my social ­struggles, how hard I find it to make friends and stay focused, and my indecisiveness. The way I float through life reminds me of how my eldest daughter Penelope is.”

After meeting Baron-Cohen, the couple both filled out an AQ Questionnaire which is designed to measure the expression of Autism-Spectrum traits in a person.

Christine then went on to explain that the scale goes from 0 to 50 and an average neurotypical person would score about 15.

She revealed that Paddy scored 15, while her score was at 36.

She continued: “I broke down in floods of tears, I’m just really sad for my younger self.”

Adding that her husband had suspected it for years, he was always conscious that she had “quirks” and was “a bit different.”

Saying in her memoir that she is the best version of herself when she is with her children, twins Penelope and Leo, eight, and Felicity, five, and credits that to the fact that they are all autistic.