While our journey with Loowan was about finding the right early intervention therapies, our experience with Siikwan sent us down a completely different rabbit hole: one paved with research gaps, subtle signs, and a word we hadn't fully understood until we were living it: masking.
If you look at the history of autism research, the vast majority of it has focused on boys. Because of this, classic diagnostic criteria, and what most people picture when they think of autism, are often tailored to how neurodivergence manifests in young males. Very little is widely known or discussed about how it presents in girls, particularly between the ages of 5 and 8.
And during those crucial years, our sparkling gem of a girl was becoming an expert masker.
Masking is essentially the exhausting act of learning, copying, and performing neurotypical social behaviors to fit in or camouflage internal distress. At school, Siikwan could mostly hold it together, observe her peers, and mirror what was expected of her. To the outside world, she was doing just fine. But at home, where she finally felt safe enough to let her guard down, the emotional tax of holding up that mask all day became impossible to hide.
The more obvious, visible barrier for Siikwan at first was ADHD. That was clear and assessable right away, which allowed us to begin early intervention group therapy (CogFun) through our healthcare provider. But beneath the ADHD, we knew there was another piece of the puzzle that wasn't being named.
Because it is so easy for high-masking girls to slip through the cracks, we decided about two years ago to trust our instincts. We made an appointment with a private psychologist in Jerusalem who specializes in this exact presentation to speak candidly about what we were seeing behind closed doors.
Getting an accurate diagnosis for a masking girl isn't about giving them a label. It’s about giving them permission to stop performing. It’s about helping them understand why the world feels so overwhelming, and giving us, as parents, the roadmap to support who they actually are, not just the role they feel forced to play.
Honestly, if Loowan weren't so clearly on the spectrum, I don't know if I would have even considered it as an option for Siikwan. Maybe eventually I would have come to that conclusion. I've learned that if one child is neurodivergent, there's a strong chance another is too. Which, of course, then leads back to the parents. My husband and I can both see traits in ourselves that could easily be undiagnosed neurodivergence.
In the end, once I learned the word masking, it was like being handed clear hindsight into my own struggles growing up.
I don't see this as an "autism epidemic." I see it as a leap forward in testing tools, better literature available to the public, and a level of general awareness that simply didn't exist before. That’s why it’s called a spectrum.
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