Autistic kids face higher suicide risk and no one warned us

Neal Tricarico · July 29, 2026 · 11 min read

Neal Tricarico shares what he learned only after his son Anthony died by suicide: autistic kids who mask well face higher suicide risk, and standard interventions often do not fit.

A still creek under warm low evening light, on Autistic kids face higher suicide risk and no one warned us - The Endurant Way

When Anthony was diagnosed with autism at seven, we were told he might need extra support at school, so we got it. When doctors recommended therapies for speech and motor skills, we sought those out too. But when he started struggling with depression and suicidal thoughts, no one told us the same thinking patterns that powered his achievements might also amplify his most harmful thoughts. Autistic kids who do not look disabled die from suicide more often and at earlier ages. We learned all of this after he was gone.

TL;DR

Autistic youth face a suicide risk more than twice that of neurotypical peers, and the screening tools, warning signs, and interventions most families and providers rely on were designed for neurotypical brains. Parents deserve to know what the research actually shows, because informed prevention is the difference between catching a crisis early and learning everything in hindsight.

Key Takeaways

Autistic youth are more than twice as likely to attempt suicide compared to non-autistic peers, with suicidal thoughts appearing as early as age eight.
Masking -- the exhausting work of suppressing autistic traits to blend in -- is itself a suicide risk factor, yet most parents have never heard the term.
Standard crisis screening tools and safety plans were built for neurotypical youth and often miss the way suicidal thinking shows up in autistic kids.
Asking directly about suicide does not plant the idea; it opens the door for a young person who may be suffering in silence.
Neurodiversity-informed prevention tools exist in research settings but have not yet reached most pediatricians, school counselors, or families.

What is the link between autism and suicide risk?

The numbers are stark and they deserve to be more widely known. A 2023 meta-analysis found that roughly 10% of autistic children and teenagers had attempted suicide, a rate more than twice that of their non-autistic peers LA Times: What researchers want families to know. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention reports that the relative risk of autistic people dying by suicide is 2.85 times higher than the general population, with roughly one in three autistic individuals reporting suicidal ideation and 15 to 25 percent reporting suicide attempts or behaviors AFSP: Autism and Suicide.

Perhaps most alarming is how early these thoughts begin. Researchers at the Kennedy Krieger Institute surveyed more than 900 caregivers of autistic children and found that over 35 percent of children eight years old or younger had experienced suicidal thoughts. Nearly one in five had already made a plan Kennedy Krieger Institute. The idea that suicide risk is an adolescent-or-later concern does not hold for autistic kids. The timeline starts earlier than most of us were taught.

For our family, these statistics are not abstractions. Our son Anthony was bright, athletic, kind, and accomplished. He had a 4.6 GPA, two part-time jobs, a busy social life, and a black belt in karate. He ran marathons and finished Spartan Races. From the outside, he looked like he was thriving. The warning signs did not fit the checklist we had been given. And that turned out to be part of the problem.

Why are autistic kids at higher risk?

The elevated risk is not mysterious. There are identifiable, research-backed factors that converge in ways most parents and even many clinicians are not trained to recognize.

First, co-occurring mental health conditions are far more common in autistic children. A large 2021 study of more than 42,000 caregivers found that 78 percent of autistic children had at least one co-occurring psychiatric condition, compared with 14 percent of non-autistic children PubMed: Kerns et al.. Depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive patterns all show up at higher rates, and each amplifies suicide risk on its own.

Second, the sensory and social demands of daily life impose a heavy toll. For a neurotypical kid, a noisy hallway or a crowded lunch period might be briefly annoying. For an autistic kid, those same environments can be sensorially overwhelming in ways that accumulate into genuine distress. Add the cognitive load of constantly deciphering social signals that do not come naturally, and you have a recipe for chronic exhaustion that erodes mental health over time.

Third, and this matters enormously for parents like us who had never heard the term: masking. Our son went to great lengths to keep his autism diagnosis a secret. In middle school he announced he no longer wanted any accommodations. No more individualized education plan. No more behavioral therapy. No more telling friends or teachers. "It is my belief he just wanted all that to go away, and to just be like everyone else," I told the Los Angeles Times last fall LA Times: Why autistic kids are at higher risk. What we did not know then was that masking itself is a documented suicide risk factor for autistic people. The research shows that constantly suppressing who you are to fit into a neurotypical world is correlated with depression, anxiety, and suicidal behavior PubMed: Chapman et al..

Why is the risk higher for kids who mask well?

This is the part that still sits heaviest with me. The kids who look like they are doing fine are often the ones carrying the most invisible weight.

Lisa Morgan, founder of the Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup and an autistic self-advocate, puts it plainly: "Masking is actually a risk factor of suicide for autistic people, and it has a negative effect on one's mental health" Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup. Masking is cognitively and emotionally exhausting. It means manually running social calculations that neurotypical brains handle automatically, all day, every day, while trying to appear effortless.

There is a cruel twist in the data. For non-autistic youth, higher IQ is generally a protective factor against suicidal thoughts. But for autistic youth, the opposite appears to be true. A University of Iowa study found that autistic children with an IQ of 120 or higher were nearly six times more likely to experience suicidal thoughts than autistic children with average cognitive ability University of Iowa Carver College of Medicine. These twice-exceptional kids have the cognitive tools to mask more effectively, to understand their own differences more acutely, and to feel the gap between who they are and who they think they should be more painfully.

Anthony was one of those kids. He was sharp enough to build an outward life that impressed everyone around him. He was also sharp enough to know exactly how different he felt inside. The two truths coexisted, and the second one went largely unseen.

What did no one ever tell us?

No one told us that the standard suicide screening tool most providers use was not designed for autistic brains. No one told us that up to 80 percent of autistic people have alexithymia -- difficulty identifying and describing their own internal emotional state -- which means a child in deep crisis might not be able to answer "What are you feeling?" in any way that matches a clinician's expectations PMC: Bird and Cook.

No one told us that an autistic teenager who says suicidal thoughts are "not real" or "fleeting" may be communicating genuine risk in the only way their brain can access at that moment. No one told us that withdrawal can look like discipline, that a rigid daily schedule can look like ambition, that a teenager who seems to be checking every box on the success list might also be silently running out of reasons to keep going.

The research community knows these things. Jessica Schwartzman, director of the TREND Lab at Children's Hospital Los Angeles, says plainly: "It makes sense that all of the interventions that have been designed for a neurotypical youth probably are not going to translate in the same way to autistic youth" LA Times: What researchers want families to know. The knowledge exists. It just has not traveled far enough yet.

What changes when prevention accounts for neurodiversity?

Neurodiversity-informed prevention does not require reinventing the mental health system from scratch. It starts with a few shifts that are practical and achievable now.

First, screening needs to happen earlier and more frequently. If suicidal thoughts are showing up in autistic children as young as seven or eight, waiting until middle school to ask the first question is waiting too long. Asking about suicide does not plant the idea. It is protective LA Times: What researchers want families to know.

Second, the format of the conversation matters. Some autistic kids may respond better to a text message, a written note, or a quiet, low-stimulation environment than to a direct verbal interview in a bright clinical office. Giving a child options for how they communicate about suicidal thoughts is not accommodation for its own sake. It is the difference between getting a real answer and getting the answer the child thinks the adult wants to hear.

Third, safety planning needs to be adapted. Researchers are currently working on modifications to the standard Stanley-Brown safety plan specifically for autistic people, and studies on their effectiveness are underway LA Times: What researchers want families to know. Until those reach every pediatrician and school counselor, parents need to know that the tools they are handed may need to be adjusted.

Finally, and this matters most of all: acceptance is prevention. I have written before about why using the word suicide plainly matters, and the same principle applies here. Naming the risk openly, without flinching, is the first step toward making it survivable. Morgan says it directly: "Suicide prevention for autistic people is being accepted for who they are, being able to be who they are without masking" LA Times: What researchers want families to know. The single most effective thing we can do for autistic kids is build environments where they do not have to exhaust themselves pretending to be someone else in order to belong.

Our son has always been different. So why would not how we approach suicide be different? That question, asked in grief, points toward an answer that could help a lot of other families avoid learning these truths the way we had to. It is the same question that sits at the heart of finding a way forward after suicide loss: the practice of rebuilding meaning through deliberate action when the will to act is absent.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are autistic children really at higher risk of suicide?

Yes. A 2023 meta-analysis found that approximately 10 percent of autistic children and teens had attempted suicide, more than double the rate of their non-autistic peers LA Times: What researchers want families to know. The AFSP reports that the relative risk of autistic people dying by suicide is 2.85 times higher than the general population AFSP: Autism and Suicide.

How could we have known what we were never told?

You cannot see what you were never taught to look for. The warning signs for autistic youth often look different from the standard checklist. A decline in verbal communication, increased rigidity, or matter-of-fact statements about hopelessness can all signal risk in ways that do not match what most parents and even clinicians are trained to recognize. The gap is in the training, not in your care. But knowledge alone is not closure. As I have written about why post-traumatic growth is not closure, growth and grief coexist. You carry both at once.

Where can a family in crisis get help right now?

If you or someone you know is experiencing thoughts of suicide, help is available. Call or text 988 to reach the 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The American Foundation for Suicide Prevention at afsp.org offers resources for loss survivors, including support groups and therapist directories. The Autism and Suicide Prevention Workgroup at autismcrisissupport.com provides autism-specific crisis resources and guidance. You are not alone, and help is always available.