3 Masking
A key phenomenon to consider in coaching environments is one of ‘masking’. Masking is a term used to describe how someone tries to adopt more neurotypical traits to cope with different challenges thrown up by a social situation they may find themselves in (Quigley and Gallagher, 2025). This process takes a lot of effort and energy from that individual (Billington, 2023) and impacts not only how they will engage and behave within a coaching session, but also how they feel once they leave. The next activity introduces you to an example of masking and encourages you to consider the implications of this.
Activity 3 Experiences of masking
This podcast episode is of two young people, Ginny and Andrew, discussing lived experiences of autism. Listen to the clip, where Andrew describes his experience of masking. While listening, consider the three questions that follow.
Transcript: Being autistic and living a good life
GINNY
You mentioned masking, which is something I’ve heard a lot about, but I don't feel like I understand well.
ANDREW
Yeah. So I think masking is basically covering up your autism. And I think it’s interesting, because for me, because I got diagnosed at 19, I didn’t realise how much of my life I spent masking. And because as I was being raised, those mannerisms that were masking were also as defined by my parents being polite, it’s very hard for me to unpick them too.
So right now, in this conversation, for example, I’m masking. And I think masking is something that you do to cover up your autism. Most of the time, it’s done to your advantage. I want to talk in a masked way to you. Because otherwise, I wouldn’t be looking at you. I am accentuating my voice a little bit. I’m quite monotone, and I’d just be talking non-stop sort of thing. I’d rather mask in this situation because it feels nicer to have a conversation that’s a bit more reciprocal, for example.
A lot of the time that I employ it in my day-to-day life, it’s good for me. However, though I do think there’s a flip side to masking, where it is, for lack of a better word, quite traumatic because, especially for younger people, especially for people with more support needs, where they may be forced into therapeutic settings, there can be a lot of forced masking there. It’s really important to be aware that with masking, there can be a lot of trauma associated with it, even though a lot of the masking that I did growing up and that I’ve learned is quite useful for me now.
I mean, I’ve gotten into med school. I’ve got myself a first-class degree in medical sciences. It does come with a lot of trauma. And it’s what I was saying before, with social interaction being a lot of effort.
It’s not just the fact that you need to work harder to do the social interaction. It’s also wrapped up in a whole load of past instances in that person’s life, where they’ve misread the situation. They thought they were doing the right thing, and it’s really backfired in their face. And they don’t know what’s going on. And they’ve had to really deal with the social consequences of that. And that can be really, really hard.
- Why might an athlete feel the need to mask their neurodivergence?
- As a coach why is it important not to encourage neurodiverse individuals to adopt neurotypical behaviours?
- Why is it important to understand what has been happening in an individual’s day prior to coming to their sport or exercise sessions?
Discussion
- In line with Andrew’s description, an athlete may feel the need to mask their neurodivergence if their experiences, behaviours and needs are not accepted or understood by those around them resulting in poor mental health outcomes (Cassidy et al., 2020). This means that neurodivergence in sporting contexts can often go unnoticed or not be recognised or acknowledged (Hoare et al., 2023). These are behaviours adopted early in childhood through school environments, with these experiences being characterised as bullying by both peers and staff (Billington, 2023).
- Often, this is further characterised by teachers encouraging individuals to adopt neurotypical or ‘normal’ behaviours with the result of individuals being ‘othered’, made to feel different, and marginalised (Billington, 2023). Experiences of stigma like this can exacerbate feelings of anxiety, stress and exhaustion which is associated with poor mental health.
- Athletes may turn up to a coaching session already in a heightened state of anxiety or stress depending on how their day has gone up to that point. Neurotypical athletes may have similar experiences before any given session, but as a sport setting may be built around neurotypical needs, they are likely to be impacted very differently.
The content of Week 3 will help you explore strategies on how this can be managed for a neurodivergent athlete, but at this stage you might want to reflect on whether you have experience of an athlete attending a coaching session in this way, and how this may have manifested itself.