How difficult is it to diagnose an adult as being autistic?
As an example, my early twenties nephew is autistic, (on the spectrum? I’m unsure about the proper terminology) but unless you were told that, you’d probably never guess. He was diagnosed as a small child.
If my nephew hadn’t been diagnosed as a child, would the accumulation of life and experience, which changes how you interact with the world over time, would that make a diagnoses more difficult?
As I understand it, autism is diagnosed by looking for:
The typical symptoms
The severity of the symptoms
How they interfere with daily life
It’s possible over time a person with autism, particularly with milder symptoms, can develop coping mechanisms based on imitating other people.
Here’s something that specifically discusses autism in adults.
It is a very difficult question to answer because “autism” encompasses a wide range of presentations and severity levels, and interventions early in life with ongoing support can indeed have impacts on the severity of presentation later.
A not completely pedantic question is whether or not the label should be removed from some who had met criteria but who after interventions and with time no longer does. They are not really “cured”, and “remission” seems like a wrong word. But they have been treated.
I would say near impossible. From DSM-5
C. Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities or may be masked by learned strategies in later life).
So now that they are an adult, how would one determine if they had the requisite symptoms as a young child?
History and records.