Will autism get better or worse with age?

Parents and caregivers of autistic kids often wonder if autism gets better with age.

Wanting your kid to fit in and be healthy is normal, but society conflates autism as being abnormal.

Here’s the short version: Your autistic child will never grow up to be “normal”, because normal does does not exist.

Here’s why: “Normal” isn’t static. Autistic people are “normal” as far as being autistic goes, just as non-autistic people are “normal” as far as non-autistic people go.

Whether autism is “good” or “bad” — or “better” or “worse” — is often narrated from the non-autistic people around them.

This means that, as long as an autistic person isn’t “too much” of a burden, inconvenience or annoyance for a non-autistic person in their life, their autism is perceived as “good” or “better”.

Reasons autism may seem “better” or “cured”

The short answer: Confirmation bias. You see something and perceive it as “fact” because you decide it is, rather than looking into why.

Something I’ve observed in non-autistic people is that they look at and accept things as a whole, rather than looking at the individual things that make up that whole.

So they’ll look at solving symptoms instead of the problem causing those symptoms.

In other words, what you see and how you perceive someone else doesn’t make your perception reality — even if you seek to confirm your bias.

1. Masking autism

Non-autistic people, also known as allistic people, perceive an autistic person as “less” autistic or “better” when the traits exhibited are not obviously autistic.

This doesn’t mean the person’s autism no longer exists or that they’ve been “cured” of autism; it only means you don’t recognize it.

Actually, the autistic person is likely masking by avoiding doing things around you that you’ve criticized them for.

Autistics often excel at pattern recognition, which means we recognize and remember things by association and seek to behave accordingly. We might not even realize we’re doing it, which explains why our self-corrective behavior may be inconsistent.

2. Having more agency over ourselves in adulthood

Adults can, for the most part, do whatever they want.

Kids can’t.

As a kid, I required permission for every little thing — even to use the toilet — so then I grew into an adult who asked permission and now I don’t ask for permission, because I realized adults make decisions for themselves!

Autistic adults with the financial means can outsource anything in their lives, including grocery shopping and laundry.

We have that agency over our lives and the autonomy to do what we want without constantly having to ask for permission.

What non-autistic people view as luxury conveniences to splurge on ever so often, autistic people view as necessary accommodations to help them live their lives.

I overheard a supervisor talking about an autistic coworker’s accommodations seeming “redundant” since my coworker was “clearly capable of doing more things now”.

That’s the entire point of accommodations: they meet our needs and give us a break from thing we literally CANNOT do, therefore giving us the energy to do more of what we CAN do.

A fully accommodated autistic person DOES appear “normal” or non-autistic to allistic people BECAUSE of accommodations.

That is literally the entire point of accommodations:

• To help people who need them have a higher quality of life
• To level the “playing field”
• To create and emphasize equity and justice over equality, which often leaves people out

I made each of my nieces a sandwich using two slices of bread. This is equality.

• The youngest’s sandwich was cut into fourths.
• The middle child’s sandwich was cut in half.
• The oldest’s sandwich was not cut at all.

This is equity. Many adults don’t comprehend equity as being better for the same reason as my middle niece’s issue with it:

• Zelda has four small sandwiches.
• Solara has one big sandwich.
• Iah only had two small sandwiches.

The sandwiches were the same sizes, but they were cut accordingly to each child’s needs. Zelda eats sandwiches better when they’re cut into fourths, but Iah perceived this as unfair because she got “two more sandwiches” than her.

On the other hand, Solara didn’t have a problem with it because she didn’t need her sandwich cut into smaller pieces.

The issue many adults have with accommodations is their viewing accommodations as “extras” or “perks”, even though they don’t need those perks.

They perceive the accommodations as “unfair”, especially when the result of those accommodations = a seemingly non-autistic person (who is still autistic, but not obviously so thanks to those accommodations).

Reasons autism may seem “worse” with age

The other side of the discussion is that autism “worsens” with age, but again: allistics aren’t looking at the smaller details; they’re relying on their bias.

1. Autistic burnout

The problem with masking autism is how taxing it is.

Imagine going through life and never being allowed to be yourself, because being yourself means being criticized.

I understand that this may be difficult for people with privilege who don’t comprehend their privilege or understand the purpose of pointing out privilege…so this “imagine” isn’t that accessible.

Masking is a coping tool that keeps us alive so our caregivers won’t murder us.

Spending your whole life meeting unrealistic standards is exhausting. Autistic people cannot keep up, so we burn out.

2. Unmet needs

I’ve noticed this about myself, and it makes a lot of sense when you consider Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.

Physiological needs are the most important needs and include food, air, water, shelter.

Safety needs are the second most important needs; people need to feel safe.

People also need to feel as though they belong somewhere, think warmly of themselves, and do things that interest them.

Take a need out — any need — and the person will continue surviving, but for how long will they without struggling?

If you, like me, play The Sims, you know well what managing a Sim is like when even ONE of their needs bars are in the red.

When my needs aren’t met, I feel like I’m drowning and struggling to stay afloat. I struggle to maintain the rest of my life.

My brain doesn’t process language or sensory input properly, so I’ll either smell more or less.

I don’t understand why non-autistic people pathologize these affects when autistic people are experiencing them.

Because anytime a non-autistic person’s dealing with unmet needs, the world understands and empathizes. Allistic people are encouraged to take mental health days.

Autistic people are encouraged to keep going, told to suck it up or perceived as “severe”. It’s like we’re not actual people to the rest of the world, or else society would acknowledge that we do have needs like non-autistic people.

It’s an opinion.

Again, whether someone’s autism is “better” or “worse” is often an opinion from the lens of someone else who has no say at all.

Non-autistic people love narrating the autistic experience despite not being autistic themselves and need to stop. How you perceive someone else’s autism doesn’t matter.

Wanting your child to seem “less autistic” is wanting them to be less of themselves. Autism is an intricate part of who they are, and attempting to “get it out” in any way forces them to develop harmful coping strategies that affect them later in life.

And before anyone suggests it: Masking makes autism “worse” — you just don’t see it because of the mask.

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Other commonly asked questions about autism:

• Do autistic people understand innuendos?
• Do vaccines cause autism?
• Is autism a disability?
• Is autism the next stage of evolution?
• What does “actually autistic” mean?
• Why do some autistics prefer “person with autism”?