What is meant by ‘autism is an invisible condition?’

When learning about autism, it is common to come across the description that autism is an ‘invisible’ condition.

One way of understanding what this means is to think about autism in comparison to other disabilities. For instance, when a person is in a wheelchair, this is a visible sign that they have difficulty walking. Similarly, a guide dog is a visible sign that indicates a person is visually impaired. In comparison, there are no visible signs that a person may be autistic.

Here’s another way to consider the idea that autism is invisible:

Many autistic people will have already devised their own strategies and coping mechanisms for dealing with their difficulties. Therefore, to the outside world, it is not obvious that they actually have underlying challenges.

There are two main points to take away from this:

An autistic person can appear very ‘normal’, neurotypical or competent, however this appearance is only because they are using learned strategies to help them to cope. It is easy for others to forget, or not recognise at all, that a person is autistic.An autistic person may have unusual behaviours which causes others to think that they are being aloof or a bit “difficult”. These behaviours however, are usually a sign that they are struggling.

Here are some examples:

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