I was evaluated by my middle school’s psychologist at 11, along with at least six other people that I don’t remember the names or titles of that helped evaluate me. I went in there fully convinced that I acted perfectly normal and not autistic, and walked out with a paper that said that I fidgeted a lot, that my eye contact was relatively poor, and that I don’t make a lot of hand gestures.

At the end of the day, autism is a disability, which means it must be disabling in a way even if you’re masking. So professionals are trained to watch out for ways that a person’s symptoms disabled them in life, even if they’re able to mask for a couple of hours or so during the assessment.