Eden Equips #002 Behind the mask

Striding confidently into the room, she introduced herself and asked my name.

I’d been regularly helping at the youth group for a couple of months and assumed from their behaviour this was a new volunteer. As the conversation progressed the penny slowly dropped. This was actually a girl who’d been dropped off at the youth club by her mum and hadn’t attended in the past year.

Over the coming weeks, this girl would go on to exhibit some of the most complex behaviour I’d ever encountered. Initially she had seemed to display all of the social skills of a neurotypical adult but these were simply learnt behaviours. However, with this she lacked the understanding to adapt and adjust to new experiences or the ability to express what she actually felt. She was constantly acting and reacting how she thought others wanted her to.

Masking is or camouflaging is ‘artificially performing social behaviour that is deemed to be more socially acceptable (by neurotypical standards) or hiding behaviour that might be viewed as socially unacceptable’. Lai,M et al. (2016). A performance, constantly suppressing behaviours to be ‘accepted by others’.

Masking is particularly common amongst girls and whilst it can help them socially it can also do serious harm. Autistic burnout, regression, and mental health difficulties. A common childhood difficulty we see with masking is the ‘4 o clock’ explosion. Masking behaviours throughout school and then the moment they are home we can see distressing or challenging behaviours.

 This week’s simple suggestion is to remember the phenomenon of masking and keep an open mind to the possibility that undiagnosed autism might lie behind a girl’s distressing behaviour. Often with girls this possibility is never considered because their behaviour doesn’t fit in with ‘stereotypical’ autism.

For more information see our short training clips on girls and autism across our social media platforms!

The blog post above was included in our growing weekly email “Eden Equips”. We’re really grateful to all who’ve shared your contact details with us and we’ll do our utmost to add genuine value to your inbox each week.

Every email will contain a simple suggestion to help you.

Your dedication to seeing every child flourish inspires our work.