As scientific investigations continue to explore and debunk suspected environmental contributors to autism, and unsubstantiated vaccine theories resurface, we risk diverting attention away from a critical public health question: How do we best support the millions of autistic children and adults living in our communities today?
For decades, autism intervention efforts have pursued a noble goal: help autistic people fit into a world that was not set up for them. Yet efforts to teach individuals “socially appropriate” behaviors have had unintended consequences. An autistic person may learn a social script, make more eye contact, or become better at navigating a conversation. On the surface, these changes look like success. But when social support becomes focused primarily on appearing less autistic, we risk teaching something else entirely – that one’s autistic identity must be actively suppressed if they want to be successful in life.
This process is commonly referred to as masking or social camouflage. It involves the act of concealing or compensating for behaviors that others perceive as socially undesirable while adopting behaviors that more closely conform to neurotypical (i.e., non-autistic) expectations.
All people engage in some degree of impression management. We monitor what we say, adjust our behavior across settings, and sometimes suppress natural impulses to achieve a social goal. Anyone who has tried to make a good impression on a first date or during a job interview understands this basic human tendency.
For autistic individuals, however, masking can become something far more pervasive. Rather than temporarily putting their best foot forward, they may feel pressure to continuously monitor their facial expressions, eye contact, body movements, tone of voice, conversational timing, disclosure of interests, and emotional reactions. In addition to completing the same school, work, and daily living responsibilities as everyone else, they must devote additional mental resources to constructing and maintaining a socially acceptable persona.
And many become exceptionally skilled at doing so. Masking can help autistic people form personal relationships, succeed professionally, avoid bullying and peer mistreatment, and navigate myriad environments that might otherwise reject them. In this way, masking can function as an important, and arguably essential, survival strategy.
But that success comes at a cost.
Impact of Masking
Long-term masking has been associated with chronic stress, depression, anxiety, and diminished well-being. Many autistic people also describe sustained masking as directly contributing to autistic burnout–a state of profound physical, mental, and emotional exhaustion that can result in withdrawal from school, work, relationships, and other obligations. Over time, a person’s sense of identity can also become less clear. Like an actor who has played the same character for years, the boundaries between the person and the role they play can begin to blur. These challenges are especially salient among autistic people who do not realize they are masking at all. Some spend years or even decades mimicking others, rehearsing conversations, suppressing natural tendencies, and wondering why everyday social interactions seem so exhausting without understanding the reason.
If autism professionals and family members are not careful, their efforts and guidance can directly contribute to the problem. What we describe as “social skills training” can actually be training in how to hide autistic characteristics.
We need not stop providing support to autistic people, but rather, we can shift the focus of that support. Social knowledge remains tremendously valuable and even life-changing. The critical distinction is between teaching social understanding, which expands choices, and social conformity, which restricts them.
Autistic people deserve access to information about different social communication strategies and relationships, the unwritten expectations that govern social interactions, and differences in expectations across neurotypes. But that information should be offered as a set of tools and possibilities, rather than a collection of hard rules to follow.
We can begin this exploration of social topics by listening to the voices of autistic individuals themselves. What relationships do they want? What social situations are difficult for them? What is getting in the way of goals they have set for themselves? Asking these questions prevents professionals and family members from assuming that we already know what’s best for autistic individuals.
Consider Eye Contact
Traditional social skill programs have often taught autistic individuals that they should look directly into another person’s eyes during conversation. Yet eye contact can be deeply uncomfortable, distracting, and even overwhelming for some autistic people. Instead of simply instructing someone to “make eye contact,” we might instead explore why people use eye contact in the first place. Among other things, looking at another person conveys engagement and interest.
Once we understand the underlying social goal, other possibilities emerge.
A person might also convey interest by nodding along, offering a brief acknowledgement, such as “mmm-hmm” or “interesting,” sharing a related experience, asking a follow-up question, or orienting their body toward the speaker. Sure, eye contact remains a viable option, but it is no longer the only acceptable one.
This process changes the question from “How can we make this person appear more neurotypical?” to “What goal is this person trying to accomplish, and what strategies might help them do this in a way that still feels authentic?”
The Adaptive Role of Masking
When reimagining socialization support, we must also be careful to avoid demonizing masking. Masking has real practical value and remains an essential, adaptive social tool. There are situations in which an autistic person may deliberately choose to modify their behavior because doing so helps them achieve something important to them. The key word is choose.
Masking is very different when it is an intentional, strategic tool rather than an unconscious, compulsory means of navigating through the world. Autism professionals and family members both have a role in helping individuals recognize when they are masking, understand the potential benefits and costs, and decide for themselves when altering their natural behavior is worth the effort.
An autistic young adult might decide that carefully monitoring their demeanor and what they say during a job interview is worth the effort because the position matters deeply to them. That same person may decide that they do not want or need to mask while spending an evening with close friends. Neither decision is inherently right or wrong. The goal is to put that decision within the autistic person’s conscious control.
Ultimately, we must reconsider how we define success in autism support efforts. The goal of autism support should not be to teach people how to appear less autistic. It should be to help autistic people acquire tools and make decisions to build relationships, careers, communities, and lives that they themselves find personally meaningful. That is a much more worthwhile definition of social success—and a much better foundation for the pursuit of happiness.
