Last year, Jenni Thompson's life changed when she was diagnosed with autism at age 44. As a primary school teacher, she had worked with children with autism in the past, but never made the connection until her daughter started to have sensory issues as a young child.

"When I first tried to get my daughter diagnosed it took a while because she is a girl, she's social, she can play and is imaginative. I was told by a psychologist that she is too social [to be autistic] and that what was wrong was my parenting skills," she said.

Ms Thompson is classified as high functioning but since she was diagnosed, she has realised that many of what she thought were personality traits, like stimming, are in fact symptoms of the condition.

"I knew as soon as [my daughter] was diagnosed it was why I had so many problems in my life too. I just want people to be aware that autism is just a difference in the way that people think - it's part of their neurodiversity and our brains have strengths and weaknesses just like everybody else," Ms Thompson said.

Autism is typically under-diagnosed in girls and women due to their being more social and having a tendency to mimic those they are with. Ms Thompson is a very social person and likes connecting with people but needs to be in an environment that is well-planned with people who are compassionate to avoid having a meltdown.

"If you give autistic people the right support, you can actually get a lot from them in terms of productivity. I'm not interested in going and chatting about the weekend, I want to plan lessons and get organised."

Last year Ms Thompson had a meltdown while at the gym and said she was thereafter ostracised by some in her community.

"For me, autism is about controlling the emotions. They say autism is about communication and I guess it is but it's also about controlling those emotions and controlling yourself when you are in environments that might be too loud or too bright."

She said there were many misconceptions around autism, including that people with the condition have no empathy, which, she said, was mostly due to their either needing time to react emotionally or because they are hyper-focused on something else.

Ms Thompson said she now has the right support system to cope with the condition and has learned to be more compassionate to herself so she can work to preempt a meltdown, though she knows it is a part of the condition that one can't grow out of.

"I'm in a great position as a teacher because I can teach kids to be more accepting of people's differences. I see it in the classroom - kids think differently all the time. So I try to teach compassion, acceptance and that everybody has strengths."