Masking and the Autism Spectrum
Masking? What is it? Well, you can be glad that I am here to give you the answer to that. It’s not a subject often raised to parents who don’t have children on the spectrum. And it wasn’t mentioned at our son’s diagnosis assessment until I brought it up to them myself.
I believe that teachers have heard of it, if they were listening on the (generally) all too brief teachings on “Special Needs” which has to cover everything. You CAN take days of training on things when you become a teacher if you feel it’s necessary, but it’s not a requirement.
Even the nursery worker who was Johnathan’s key worker in the nursery and the only person he spoke directly to (until his last year there when the library lady asked him to read stories to the other children), didn’t know anything about autism or masking until I began to tell her. She and Johnathan connected in a special way - I think because they started at that nursery on the same day.
I knew he was brilliant at masking. No other nursery worker really understood him or was able to tell when he was hiding something. So if she was out of the nursery for any reason, they did their best but he didn’t tell them anything. They had to guess what he wanted, what was going on, if he was joining in or listening because he simply didn’t show it..
When he was 2 he broke his arm. He fell over in the bathroom just before he went to bed and I said to Kevin we had to go to hospital because he had broken it. Kevin wasn’t convinced but I looked at him in bed and the arm wasn’t hanging right and there was something different in his voice. We got him to hospital and of course he had broken it.
One day when he was about 4 I had a call from the nursery. He had been pushed off a “ship” in their garden - only about 2 feet off the ground. They said his arm was sore but they had checked him and he was fine. So we could come later and get him. I was a bit uncertain, but it was only an hour to go, so I left it.
I got to the nursery and he was in the back room. Fair enough. Where he generally was when I came to collect him. Normally he would be sitting at the back or standing at the window alone. This day he was surrounded by a bevy of small girls who were talking to each other about him and I INSTANTLY knew something was wrong and most likely another break. Children are very instinctive and they KNEW so were keeping their eyes on him and making sure nobody came near.
As he stood up to come to me, I said to one of the nursery workers he had broken it. I didn’t know she was the woman who had checked him over! She said she had looked at it, got him to move it and then, seeing nothing, she put his top back on so no way could he have broken it. I got him home, Kevin packed some supplies for us and we set out to the hospital. And yes, it was broken.
So you see, if a child on the spectrum isn’t happy for you to know things, you may believe everything is ok but that doesn’t mean you know. Always believe the parent/carer/guardian. They know the child better than you.