Your child is “fine” at school. Perfect behaviour. Great grades. But at home? They’re falling apart.

This is what masking looks like. And one expert says it’s one of the most damaging things we’re missing in neurodivergent children.

We sit down with Dr Emma Offord, a leading voice on neurodiversity, masking, and sensory profiles. Emma explains the three Ms that define how neurodivergent children navigate the world: Masked, Misread, and Missed. And why understanding the difference between them could fundamentally change how we parent, teach, and support these children.

Emma’s work challenges the idea that masking is simply a choice. It’s survival. And the cost is enormous: burnout, dissociation, anxiety, eating disorders, school refusal, and a complete disconnection from who they actually are.

In this conversation, we explore the three Ms explained, why girls and women are so often missed in diagnosis, rejection sensitivity and ADHD, how masking starts in childhood and becomes a lifelong survival pattern, sensory profiles and why they matter, co-regulation vs punishment, neurodivergence-specific trauma, why schools aren’t safe for neurodivergent kids, the medical model vs the neurodiversity affirming model, neuroaffirming language and classrooms, and why we don’t need a diagnosis to start believing children and families.

Emma’s message is radical: stop asking “what’s wrong with my child?” Start asking “what does my child need?” And understand that behaviour is always communication. Always.

Because the children falling through the cracks aren’t broken. The system is.

ABOUT DR EMMA OFFORD:
Dr Emma Offord is a specialist in neurodiversity, masking, sensory profiles, and neuroaffirming approaches. She works with children, families, and educators to understand behaviour as communication and build environments where neurodivergent people can thrive. Her work bridges clinical expertise with lived experience, challenging the medical model and championing the neurodiversity affirming movement as a human rights issue.

Resources mentioned:
Sensory profiles and sensory assessments
Occupational therapist and clinical psychologist for assessments
Neuroaffirming approaches to education and parenting