What the research found about camouflaging patterns across autism, HIA, and 2e profiles
The twice-exceptional profile — high intellectual ability combined with autism — is often framed as a moderating combination. The assumption is that cognitive strengths offset autistic difficulties, producing a milder presentation. New research on camouflaging patterns suggests this framing is wrong. Twice-exceptional adults do not camouflage less than autistic adults. They camouflage at nearly identical levels — but their camouflaging is more effective at producing invisibility, which delays recognition rather than reducing need.
A 2026 study published in Revista de Logopedia, Foniatría y Audiología examined social camouflaging and pragmatic self-perception across three groups of Spanish-speaking adults: those with autism alone, those with high intellectual ability (HIA) alone, and those with twice-exceptionality (2e) — the combination of HIA and autism. The sample included 109 participants with verified clinical diagnoses.
The findings were clear. Autistic participants reported the highest levels of camouflaging across all three dimensions measured — compensation, masking, and assimilation. The HIA group reported the lowest. The twice-exceptional group occupied an intermediate position — but consistently closer to the autism profile than to the HIA profile.
The pattern held across all dimensions of the Camouflaging Autistic Traits Questionnaire (CAT-Q). On compensation — strategies used to mask communication differences — autistic adults scored highest, followed by 2e adults, with HIA adults scoring lowest. On masking — suppression of spontaneous, atypical behaviours — the same pattern emerged. On assimilation — actions aimed at blending in or “passing” in social contexts — the pattern repeated.
Only one dimension distinguished autism from 2e. The compensation subscale showed a statistically significant difference between the two groups, with autistic adults scoring higher. Masking and assimilation showed no significant difference between autism and 2e. This means that twice-exceptional adults are suppressing and assimilating at levels statistically indistinguishable from autistic adults — they are simply compensating slightly less.
The researchers interpret this compensation difference through the lens of social feedback. Autistic individuals may have faced greater external pressure to conform to neurotypical norms, leading to more deliberate and visible compensatory strategies. Twice-exceptional individuals may have received different feedback — where certain traits were interpreted as signs of intelligence rather than communicative difference. The compensation is not absent. It is simply less visible because it is more successfully integrated into a “gifted” presentation.
Why the intermediate position is autism-leaning, and why twice-exceptionality is not "autism-lite"
The twice-exceptional profile is sometimes treated as a diluted form of autism — as though high intellectual ability neutralises autistic traits and produces a fundamentally different presentation. The camouflaging data contradicts this framing directly.
The 2e profile does not sit midway between autism and neurotypicality. It sits midway between autism and HIA — and leans consistently toward the autism end. On the dimensions that most directly measure the suppression of authentic behaviour (masking and assimilation), 2e adults are indistinguishable from autistic adults. The only dimension where they differ is compensation — and even there, the difference is not that 2e adults compensate less in absolute terms, but that their compensation may be less consciously deployed or less socially visible.
This has direct implications for how the 2e profile is understood clinically and educationally. If twice-exceptional individuals are masking and assimilating at autism-equivalent levels, then their support needs are not meaningfully reduced by their cognitive strengths. The camouflage is not less intense — it is simply more effective at producing the appearance of adequacy.
The appearance of adequacy is not the same as reduced need. It is the same need, rendered invisible by a different surface presentation. The research explicitly notes that compensatory strategies may begin in early childhood and persist into adulthood, “complicating diagnosis, distorting self-perception, and limiting access to appropriate support.” The 2e profile does not escape camouflaging — it refines it into a form that evades recognition more successfully.
The invisibility trap created when giftedness masks autism and autism obscures giftedness
The twice-exceptional profile creates a specific diagnostic trap that operates in both directions simultaneously. High intellectual ability can mask autistic traits — making them less noticeable because they are integrated into sophisticated verbal and cognitive presentations. At the same time, autistic features can overshadow giftedness — leading to incomplete diagnoses that capture only the autism and miss the cognitive strengths.
The research identifies three possible outcomes. In some cases, HIA masks autism — leading individuals to develop compensatory strategies that hinder recognition. In other cases, autism overshadows HIA — resulting in diagnoses that capture autistic traits but miss intellectual strengths. In a third scenario, both conditions obscure one another — leaving the individual’s needs entirely unrecognised in either direction.
This bidirectional masking creates what the researchers call a “distinct communicative profile” — one that does not map neatly onto either autism or giftedness frameworks. The pragmatic self-perception data supports this interpretation. Twice-exceptional adults reported lower confidence in their communicative abilities than HIA adults — but higher confidence than autistic adults. They occupy an intermediate position in their own self-assessment, suggesting awareness that their communication does not fit neurotypical expectations even when their verbal abilities are advanced.
Specific pragmatic dimensions reveal where the 2e profile aligns with autism rather than HIA. No significant differences were found between 2e and autistic groups on items related to body posture, hand and arm movements, interpretation of ambiguous expressions, and comprehension of humour. These are precisely the subtle pragmatic dimensions where high verbal ability cannot compensate for autistic communication patterns. The giftedness provides cover in structured, verbal contexts — but breaks down in the implicit, nonverbal, contextually dependent aspects of social communication.
The researchers note that even on more structural discourse items — where 2e adults scored higher than autistic adults, likely supported by cognitive and linguistic strengths — the differences were not sufficient to align them with the HIA group. The overall pattern remains autism-leaning across the pragmatic domain.
Pragmatic self-perception and the cost of effective camouflaging
The correlation analyses in this study reveal a relationship between camouflaging and pragmatic awareness that differs across diagnostic profiles. In the twice-exceptional group, higher camouflaging was associated with lower pragmatic metacognitive insight — suggesting that the effort invested in camouflaging may actually reduce self-awareness of one’s own communicative patterns.
This is not a paradox. It is a predictable outcome of sustained camouflaging. When cognitive resources are devoted to monitoring and suppressing authentic behaviour, fewer resources remain for reflecting on that behaviour. The camouflaging itself becomes the focus — not the underlying communication patterns it is designed to conceal. Over time, this can produce a dissociation between performance and awareness, where individuals successfully navigate social contexts without accurate insight into how they are doing so.
The research found that the total CAT-Q score — the overall measure of camouflaging intensity — correlated negatively with several pragmatic indicators in the 2e group, including physical contact, gaze, lexical cohesion, and coherence. Higher global camouflaging was associated with reduced self-reported competence in these areas. The interpretation is not that camouflaging causes pragmatic difficulty — but that intensive camouflaging may obscure one’s own pragmatic functioning from conscious access.
Gender effects were limited overall but more pronounced within the autism group. Women and non-binary individuals consistently reported higher levels of social camouflaging compared to men — a finding consistent with the broader literature on gendered camouflaging patterns. Within the 2e group specifically, gender differences emerged between women and men on compensation, masking, and assimilation. The pattern suggests that gender-based social expectations compound the camouflaging demands already created by the 2e profile.
The practical implications are direct. Twice-exceptional adults are not a population with reduced support needs. They are a population whose needs are systematically obscured by the interaction between cognitive strengths and autistic camouflaging. Recognition requires looking past the surface presentation — past the verbal sophistication, the apparent social competence, the absence of visible “disruptive” behaviour — and attending to the effort being expended to produce that presentation.
The researchers conclude that intervention for 2e adults should adopt an integrated perspective that distinguishes adaptive strategies from emotionally costly camouflaging. The goal is not to eliminate camouflaging — which may serve genuine adaptive functions — but to reduce the pressure to camouflage at levels that compromise self-awareness, authentic connection, and access to support. Twice-exceptional individuals are not autism-lite. They are autism with better cover — and the cover comes at a cost that remains invisible to observers who mistake performance for ease.
Citations
Nistor Escudero, A. M. I., López Resa, P., & Sotos Gracia, R. (2026) — Seeming to belong: Camouflaging and pragmatic self-perception in twice-exceptional adults across neurodivergent profiles
