The Invisible Labour of Autistic Masking
May 27 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm
This session explores Autistic masking and communication through the lens of Communication Work, a health communication concept that examines why and how communication can become effortful and exhausting.
Drawing on the presenter’s dissertation research, the workshop highlights findings that conceptualize Autistic masking as a form of communication work enacted in response to stigma, social expectations, and efforts to avoid social isolation and disenfranchisement. The session emphasizes that masking is not simply a set of behaviors used in isolated interactions but an ongoing communicative process that unfolds over time—helping explain why masking can be so exhausting and why its negative impacts often persist even as individuals become more practiced in these behaviors.
The workshop will introduce evidence-based strategies for managing communication work, regaining communicative agency, and navigating interactions with non-Autistic others.
Designed to be interactive and practical, the session offers tools to help reduce the invisible labor of masking and support more sustainable communication practices.
This session is brought to you by Autism Edmonton with support from the Sinneave Family Foundation.
Wednesday, May 27
12:00 – 1:00 p.m. (Mountain Time)
Online via Autism Edmonton
Registration for this event is via Autism Edmonton’s Eventbrite page. You can register by clicking the button that says “Register.”
About the Presenter:
Abigail D. Hazlett, PhD, is an Autistic health communication researcher who earned her doctorate in Communication Studies from the University of Texas at Austin in March 2026. Her work focuses on how people communicate during stressful, uncertain, or inequitable health experiences, and how those interactions shape well-being, health choices, and access to care. Using interviews, collaborative research with communities, and mixed methods, Hazlett studies how everyday conversations about health are influenced by larger systems such as healthcare institutions, culture, and social norms.
Hazlett is also a co-author of the Integrative Theory of Communication Work, which explains communication as a form of labor shaped by expectations, demands, and available resources. Influenced by her own experience and in collaboration with a community advisory board of late-identified and/or diagnosed Autistic adults, her dissertation applied this framework to understand how late-identified Autistic adults mask their Autistic traits in response to social pressures and exclusion, and how these experiences affect identity, well-being, and healthcare access.
Her research aims to inform practical, equity-focused interventions that help people navigate difficult conversations about health and identity while strengthening systems of care.
