Understanding Neurodivergent Masking

Duration: 1.5 hours

Format: Virtual, interactive webinar (unless otherwise arranged)

Who it is for: All school staff and volunteers, in teaching, support and admin roles. No prior knowledge of masking or neurodiversity is needed.

Group size: Up to 40 staff

Price: £350 (no VAT) for up to 40 staff. Please contact us for a price for higher numbers of attendees.

Trainer: Delivered by Autistic Girls Network trainers who are neurodivergent themselves and bring lived experience to every part of the session.

CPD: Certified by The CPD Certification Service. Attendees receive a CPD certificate of completion.

Scheduling: Training runs in UK time. We can accommodate UK evening sessions; schools outside the UK should contact us to discuss timing.

Masking is consciously or unconsciously hiding your natural way of being, copying the people around you, and suppressing what your body needs in order to fit in or avoid a negative reaction. For many autistic young people it is not a choice. It is survival.

The trouble is that masking works, from the outside. A masking pupil rarely asks for help, rarely shows distress, and often does well academically. Staff reasonably conclude there is nothing to worry about. Meanwhile the young person is carrying anxiety, exhaustion and a growing sense that who they really are is not acceptable. Over time this leads to shutdown, meltdown and burnout, to barriers to attendance, and to a mental health toll that families see at home long before school does.

Because masking is so often unnoticed, it is one of the main reasons autistic girls are identified late, or not at all, and why the support they eventually get comes after the crisis rather than before it. Recognising masking as a sign of unmet need, not success, is one of the most protective things a school can do.

This session is grounded in lived experience and shaped in collaboration with neurodivergent and neurotypical pupils. It is practical, discussion-based and honest, and it does not blame anyone. Staff leave able to spot the clues, understand what is happening underneath, and make concrete changes that reduce the pressure to mask across the whole school.

Please note: the session includes a short section on the mental health impact of long-term masking, with a content warning for self-harm and suicidal ideation. Attendees are told in advance and can step away from that section if they need to.

By the end of the session, staff will be able to:

• Recognise the internal presentation of autism and neurodivergence. Understand what masking means, how it looks and sounds in a classroom, why it is seen so often in girls, and the toll it takes on the young people doing it.
• Spot the clues. Not asking for help, agreeing when confused, enduring overwhelming environments without complaint, forcing participation. What you see, and what you don't.
• Understand meltdown, shutdown and burnout. What each one is, how they differ, why they are not tantrums or defiance, and why believing parents and carers about what happens at home is essential.
• Understand the mental health cost of masking. Anxiety, exhaustion, loss of identity, delayed recognition, and why creating space to unmask can be life-changing.
• Apply Dr Luke Beardon's "golden equation". Autism plus environment equals outcome. What that means for the choices your school makes every day.
• Recognise Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria (RSD). Why it increases masking and the risk of burnout, why it is so often read as anger and punished, and how to respond instead.
• Understand alexithymia and communication differences. The double empathy problem, why misunderstandings on the playground are not always what they seem, and how to teach all pupils that communication styles vary.
• Support stimming rather than suppress it. Why respecting stimming builds a positive autistic identity, and why discouraging it drives masking, anxiety and rejection.
• Use language that reduces the need to mask. Identity-first language, strengths not deficits, and what to say instead of "you're being rude" or "stop being weird".
• Identify safe people and predictable check-ins. Simple, low-cost adjustments that remove uncertainty and give a pupil somewhere to take the mask off.
• Put a whole school approach into practice. Emotionally safe classrooms, sensory accommodations and movement breaks, predictable routines, no forced eye contact, connection not correction. Staff receive a practical strategies resource to keep.

Every attendee is asked to commit to one change to their own practice before the session ends. Feedback and a short reflective knowledge check follow the training.

To book Understanding Neurodivergent Masking for your school, or to ask about combining it with our other school training, email hello@autisticgirlsnetwork.org.

Autistic Girls Network training is neurodivergent-led and rooted in lived experience. We also offer peer acceptance assemblies for pupils, in person and online, and free resources on our What We Do tab.