Is an Autism Diagnosis in Adult Age A Life Changer?

How do I know if I have autism? It’s a commonly asked question. There’s no definitive way to “know” for certain, without being tested by a qualified healthcare provider or team, because it can sometimes be challenging to diagnose. However, getting diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD), whether for yourself, a loved one, or your child, is a pivotal moment that can set many changes in motion.

While the diagnosis may explain lifelong differences and difficulties, it can still feel emotionally complex. It can change your life, or it can give you mixed emotions when you think about what this could mean for your identity, your social circle, and your future.

A positive outcome from an autism diagnosis test can open doors to new support systems and services that can vastly improve quality of life. In many ways, it marks the start of a journey toward self-acceptance and advocating for any needs.

Destigmatizing Difference

One of the most significant impacts of an autism diagnosis is that it provides an explanation for challenges and quirks that a person may have faced their whole lives. It’s also important to know that not everyone learns they have ASD as a child. ASD diagnosis age is mostly irrelevant, although often these differences have led to self-criticism, judgment from others, or a sense of not fitting in.

Getting diagnosed with autism allows for increased self-compassion, as well as education for loved ones about autism spectrum disorder. It offers context for why the world can feel confusing or overstimulating at times. In short, an autism diagnosis in adult age destigmatizes difference and validates everyday struggles.

For children, getting the diagnosis may help explain why they have difficulties with social interaction, communicating verbally, exhibiting restrictive/repetitive behaviors or displaying sensory sensitivity. These core features of autism can lead to bullying, isolation or lack of understanding from peers and adults. An earlier diagnosis allows parents and teachers to put the proper support in place and educate classmates. The goal is to foster inclusive environments that embrace neurodiversity, with more autism acceptance over time.

For adults, finally receiving an answer about being on the spectrum can be an emotional rollercoaster and come with pros and cons of autism diagnosis. On one hand, it’s validating to have an explanation for lifelong feelings of being socially awkward or “different.” An assessment process also identifies personal strengths and talents. Adults diagnosed later in life describe overwhelming feelings of relief at understanding the root of difficulties that impacted them for years.

However, there can also be feelings of grief for how circumstances may have been different had they received support earlier. Coping with the emotions surrounding a first-time diagnosis in adulthood takes time.

RELATED: Shedding Light on Autism and Why It’s An Invisible Disability

How Do I Know If I Have Autism? Accessing Support Services

An autism diagnosis also opens up access to supportive services and resources. You know longer have to ask, “How do I know if I have autism?” This support makes a vital difference in quality of life for those on the spectrum. However, the range of services varies greatly depending on where someone lives. Plus, securing assistance often requires persistence and wait lists. But an earlier diagnosis, especially for children, provides more time to access therapies during key developmental windows.

The most common post-diagnosis support services, regardless of ASD diagnosis age, include:

• Educational assistance – Individualized Education Plans (IEPs), classroom aides, transition planning. These services aid academic success and social growth.
• Speech therapy – Communication differences affect up to 50% of individuals with an ASD diagnosis. Services teach critical communication skills as well as alternative options like sign language or picture exchange communication.
• Occupational therapy – Helps those with coordination issues, sensory sensitivity or difficulties with everyday self-care/life skills like dressing, feeding or schedules/routines.
• Physical therapy – Improves core strength, balance, movement challenges and assists with co-occurring conditions like low muscle tone or poor posture.
• Social skills classes – Teaches interpersonal skills for improved social interactions through modeling, role playing and providing feedback in safe settings.
• Vocational retraining – Assistance in exploring suitable jobs/careers that align with one’s strengths and support workplace accommodations.
• Financial assistance programs – Subsidies available vary, but help to ease financial stress of therapies, specialized camps/care, disability workforce entry, etc.
• Respite care services – Provides short-term relief for unpaid caregivers of those on the spectrum at home. Allows temporary break from demands.
• Disability rights legal advocates – Help access government services, fight discrimination in schools/workplaces and secure appropriate accommodations.
• Medication – No medication treats core symptoms of ASD, but may help co-occurring conditions like anxiety, depression, ADD/ADHD, sleep issues or gastrointestinal problems. (Remember to consult with a medical expert.)

While navigating these services brings its own challenges, having the diagnosis makes you or your child eligible to receive this additional, even life-changing help. It can take years to access and piece together care from the patchwork of options available.

Handling the coordination alone feels like a full-time job for many parents. Joining local autism support networks helps navigate this complex web.

Connecting with Community

Finally, receiving an autism diagnosis in adult age allows someone to connect with an entire community. Learning from others who have shared experiences and insights can help someone embrace their unique strengths, challenges, and potential.

Local autism networks for parents provide safe spaces to find encouragement, ask questions, access resources and continue learning about evidence-based therapies. Connecting child to child can also reduce isolation.

Many communities have social skills groups, specialized summer camps and other services exclusively for kids on the spectrum to connect.

For adults, self-advocacy groups foster connections with peers who intimately understand life on the spectrum. They provide judgment-free zones to be oneself. Local Asperger/autism associations host discussion groups, game nights, young professional networks and more. This sense of community builds confidence and self-acceptance for those learning of an autism diagnosis in adult age.

Online forums also allow people to connect from all around the world. Conversations highlight that while autism varies from person to person, common threads unite lived experiences. Users share personal coping strategies for sensory, social or organizational challenges. There is comfort in realizing struggles others share.

Discussion ranges from more practical concerns like school success or workplace accommodations to lighter topics like special interests or arts exploration. User-curated blogs document diagnosis journeys or review therapies.

Social media groups focused on autism allow members across geographical barriers to connect. Hashtags like #ActuallyAutistic and my own #MyAutismMind signal spaces cultivating authentic conversation. While some online content generically motivates or informs with memes and articles, groups like this foster more intimate sharing and learning.

Members of any ASD diagnosis age describe deep frustrations, celebrate milestones or process difficult experiences among receptive company. In fact, a recent study found that participating in these online groups decreased feelings of isolation for all involved by making meaningful connections.

Of course, not all online content serves individual needs. Pros and cons of autism diagnosis also mean that one must filter through noise and misinformation spread online about autism.

However, tailored social networks provide places for people on the spectrum to share coping methods, creative talents, advocacy efforts and calls for increased acceptance. Users describe feeling empowered, understood and hopeful after discovering these communities.

They make clear that while the autism diagnosis itself does not change the person – realizing you are not alone is incredibly valuable.

Pros and Cons of Autism Diagnosis: Navigating the Emotions of Finally Knowing

Because autism is a spectrum disorder with varying support needs, each diagnosis journey is unique. For parents pursuing answers for a struggling child or adults self-diagnosing later in life – receiving confirmation brings up many different emotions. Navigating these feelings plays a key role in harnessing the diagnosis as a constructive tool for growth.

A Parent’s Perspective: How Do I Know If Someone Has Autism

For parents who watch their child struggle to reach developmental milestones, an earlier diagnosis provides wanted answers. But it can still feel devastating to have a doctor confirm suspicions that a child will face lifelong challenges. Many describe complex grief – mourning dreams envisioned while pregnant as they accept a different reality. Making sense of initial denial, anger and sadness takes time.

However, an autism diagnosis also equips parents to act. It ignites determination to secure support services that give a child the best chance to thrive. Parent-led Facebook groups provide spaces to vent fears, ask advice and gain resolve to advocate. They encourage each other to redefine success, not cure. Channeling sorrow into action focuses energy productively.

Over time, parents better recognize and appreciate their child’s unique neurotype instead of measuring rigid deficits. They learn how strengths that come with autism manifest practically. For example, pattern recognition aids careers in engineering, technology or data analytics. Exceptional focus cultivates artists and musicians.

As parents reframe perspectives once learning the answer to “How do I know if someone has autism?” question, they often describe increased gratitude for an atypical child’s one-of-a-kind giftedness.

Experience Of An Autism Diagnosis in Adult Age

For adults seeking assessment later in life, receiving an autism diagnosis is intensely personal. Suspecting one may be on the spectrum enough to pursue formal evaluation is an arduous process in itself. Adults describe living for years with unidentified struggles before generating that explanation.

When psychoeducational testing finally confirms autism, or related conditions like high-functioning Asperger’s syndrome, the event becomes monumental. Adults report experiencing euphoria at the sudden revelation that core features of autism align perfectly with individual personality components long considered “quirks.” Diagnosis affirms these are not personal failings, but explained variation.

This insight empowers some to self-advocate for needed accommodations without shame. They can also build self-compassion around communication or social difficulties haunting them for years. It grants permission to unmask and stim openly at home.

Seeking assessment and reflecting on results requires intense vulnerability. But forging a clearer view of lifelong patterns provides peace.

Of course, some grapple with negative self-perception cultivated for decades around perceived oddities. Adults diagnosed later in life mourn lost time – the years no one recognized struggles or suggested therapies that exist now.

Feelings of grief, anger or regret come in waves. But gaining an accurate understanding of self is inherently valuable. With diagnosis that follows how do I know if someone has autism, one can rewrite personal narratives with compassion.

Over time, participating in autistic-led spaces helps adults shake cultural messages long blaming them for disability. They learn to turn stigma on its head by embracing neurodiversity as a natural human variation.

They gain tools to nurture success while accepting limitations. Self-advocates describe diagnosis as a rebirth allowing them to abandon harmful masking in community with others like them.  Removing exhausting pretenses gives freedom to simply be.

LEARN MORE: Adult Tests for Autism on the Increase – Why Knowing is Important

My Personal Experience: Finding Out How Do I Know If I Have Autism

While getting a positive diagnosis of autism can be worrisome for some, I believe getting diagnosed is good because it will give you the help and resources you need, not to mention the sense of peace you’ll feel now that you understand yourself better. I didn’t receive my diagnosis until middle school, and it would have probably been later if it had not been an overcrowded math class that was loud and filled with chaos, leading me to struggle with the subject and environment.

My mom pushed for additional testing for me, because she knew I was struggling with the middle school insanity and incessant noise, and had been concerned something wasn’t quite normal as compared to my siblings, but wasn’t sure what it was or how best to help.

Getting the diagnosis enabled me to get moved to a smaller (and less crazy) classroom, and I was able to catch up and go forward with my education. I learned that I mainly needed quiet space, and sometimes additional time sometimes (you’ve undoubtedly heard about how the more an autistic is pushed to “hurry up,” the slower they seem to go).

For example, I could do well with math facts, but froze on taking timed math tests based on speed of answer.

Knowing I have autism has helped me to be more comfortable about my strengths as well as my challenges. It has helped my family become stronger as well.

LEARN MORE: My Autism Diagnosis – Commanding Life on the Spectrum

Navigating Services After Diagnosis

Once the initial emotions finding out the answer of, “How do I know if I have autism?” through a positive diagnosis begin settling, the practical work starts to secure supportive services and establish optimal routines. Effectively navigating this complex system both empowers positive progress and prevents caregiver burnout down the line.

While an autism diagnosis provides critically needed answers, resources do not automatically flow freely once identifying proof lands. Pros and cons of autism diagnosis mean that securing assistance requires active networking, researching options extensively, hustling to complete piles of paperwork per program and managing waitlists that often last months to years.

Handling this time-intensive coordination alone overwhelms many families.

This complicated navigation looks different per individual based on challenges needing support and available options dependent on location, socioeconomic status and other variables. Those in higher tax brackets and proximity to metropolitan hub cities access more robust care choices. But any family new to this web needs connectors guiding them to partner providers and government assistance eligibility to leverage what they can.

LEARN MORE: Spotlight on the Spectrum – Understanding 3 Levels of Autism

Where to Begin After Diagnosis

For most families, next best first steps are to:

1. Join local autism support networks, especially those cultivating parent connections. Other moms and dads that have been there serve as guides. They answer questions, calm fears and share area resources from lived experience. Active Facebook groups and Meetups facilitate this community. Attending group meetings also builds friendships between children on the spectrum.

2. Book a consultation with an autism care coordinator or specialist. Large healthcare networks and private therapists employ these professionals specifically due to the navigation complexity families face alone. They listen to individual symptom challenges and lifestyle constraints to craft a customized care plan pulling from area offerings. Then they pursue referrals and placement based on these recommendations as a dedicated case manager. Insurance sometimes offsets this assistance cost.

3. Enroll in government disability programs like Medicaid, local early intervention initiatives, school district special education services and vocational rehabilitation workforce initiatives. Eligibility and waitlists vary by location, so again local network referrals prove invaluable. Discerning qualification requires tenacity and paperwork skills, but opens access to free or subsidized therapies, job coaching and future group housing.

4. Seek school accommodations mandated by federal disability laws like Individualized Education Plans (IEPs) for those still in school. Being informed of educational rights and consistent self-advocating ensures appropriate policies apply to the classroom for academic fairness and social inclusion considerations. Disability Legal Support Center attorneys assist negotiating implementation where needed.
5. Appeal insurance coverage denials for needed therapies, equipment, medications or alternative treatments. Though advocacy groups continue expanding health policy protections in this realm, arriving prepared and confidently addressing rejection rationale point-by-point is key. Partnering care coordinators assist formulating medical necessity reasoning as knowledgeable experts.

The sense of urgency around allocating assistance settles to a degree once securing therapy routines or education plans. But ongoing diligence still follows families impacted by an autism diagnosis for the long run.

Services require periodic renewing, reassessment and modification as children develop or new challenges emerge. Maintaining open, productive communication channels lays necessary groundwork enabling a fulfilled life.

Overcoming Bias in the Service System

Because autism presents so differently per person, securing suitable supports relies on individualized assessment by knowledgeable clinicians. However, racial and gender bias embedded in the diagnostic process negatively impacts underserved groups. This prevents equal access to needed assistance down the line.

For example, autism rates are rising but children of color tend receive assessments far later. African American children specifically average diagnosis at 8 years old versus 3.5 years for whites.

This delayed start prevents early intervention during optimal windows. Root causes stem from lack of cultural competency training for pediatricians interpreting autism symptoms compared with neurotypical development markers, as well as systemic barriers limiting medical access related to socioeconomic disparities.

Additionally, screening tools and diagnostic criteria itself more precisely reflect traits commonly seen in white boys. There is intrinsic gender bias since autism first characterized in males. So clinicians under-identify characteristic differences manifesting in non-boys compared against that baseline.

All this effectively concentrates autism services around the experiences of white males. Yet balanced representation across races, ethnicities, gender identities and support need-levels enriches understanding of autism diversity. It informs improved, equitable policy serving the full community.

Centering a wider range of voices advocates for strength-based paradigms that empower those diagnosed to self-determine what wellness means for them. It moves culture beyond trying to normalize people into narrow boxes of achievement defined by outdated standards. Instead it fosters environments where all can contribute by being their authentic selves.

The increasing prevalence of autism will soon impact all communities, so progressing research and care frameworks with consciousness of disparities protects equal rights and promise. Collective compassion cultivated within the autism community models society the kind of understanding needed to advance systemic equity.

Embracing Strengths That Come With Autism

While getting diagnosed with autism provides explanation for certain areas requiring external support, renewed focus on capabilities positively shifts mindset. Every person on the spectrum possesses standout aptitudes forged by their atypical wiring. Reframing challenges as neurodiverse strengths empowers self-advocacy.

Common cognitive features associated with autism that manifest as talents in the right environments include:

Hyperfocus – Exceptional concentrations of attention to detail, useful for detecting patterns and high performance in preferred subjects

Enhanced perception – Advanced sensory processing of visual, auditory or tactile stimuli supports creativity, pattern recognition and detecting subtle environmental details

Visual thinking – Innate ability to conceptualize systems and ideas visually without relying on verbal language

Systemizing – Strong drive to construct rule-based patterns out of information received and fascination for how things work underlyingly

Excellent long term memory – Superior recall for facts, dates, details other deem insignificant or mundane

Honest and loyal – Guilelessness and speaking candidly without consideration of social niceties

Meanwhile, common challenges that parlay into strengths with acceptance, self-knowledge and coping skills encompass:

Difficulty with uncertainty – Spurs out-of-the-box innovative solutions and prevents complacency

Need for solitude – cultivates exceptional focus for preferred interests away from disruptions

Atypical sensory experiences – Heightens perception of environmental subtleties and drives creativity

Distinct communication style – Enables precision conveying factual detail and noticing verbal patterns  

Of course, simply reframing deficits as strengths does not instantly resolve lifelong struggles. But consciously identifying aptitudes derived from atypical neurology builds confidence and self-advocacy skills. It also guides appropriately matching environments to innate wiring.

Strengths-based perspectives even evolve societal attitudes about autism over generations. Today’s diagnostic model and with it the pros and cons of autism diagnosis remains centered around dealing with impairments causing disability. But tomorrow’s framework can progress to focusing first on sensitively assessing natural strengths while providing supports secondarily.

Growth After Initial Shock Of Getting Diagnosed With Autism

In families with multiple generations on the spectrum, diagnosis experiences molded by these accounts set positive precedents. Parents who themselves received late-in-life autism diagnoses approach evaluating a child through evolved lenses.

Their lived expertise guides approach more gently. Multi-generational households model self-acceptance that matter-of-factly ingrains pride.

No matter the path securing diagnosis, perspectives continue progressing post-identification. Initial shock or relief evolves through increased education and community connections. What was first unknown territory becomes mapped over the years.

Families discover personalized strategies, therapies and services navigating an atypical neurology. Celebrating milestones, both big and small, propels motivation.

The autism diagnosis itself does not change who the person is inherently – the individual’s interests, personality and potential stay the same. A toddler is no more or less the child they were yesterday before assessment.

Someone who is 50 years old is still the person they’ve been all along after they receive an autism diagnosis in adult age. But the added context prepares the way for positive growth and self-realization to unfold.

While much lies ahead traversing an unexpected path, the possibilities also expand with tools now within reach. What emerges is opportunity to support someone through inevitable challenges with empathy, encourage them to embrace strengths granted by a unique neurology and connect across an extensive community.

An autism diagnosis marks the crossing into a more inclusive lane – one leading to resources and relationships to fuel personal progress for the long haul. With greater insight, the true journey begins.

Understanding Autism in ICD-10: A Comprehensive Guide to Diagnosis and Classification

For further resources about ASD, consider reviewing the comprehensive guide on understanding autism in ICD-10, officially known as the International Classification of Diseases (ICD), 10th edition. In today’s society, autism is a topic of increasing concern, as the number of individuals diagnosed with this neurodevelopmental disorder continues to rise.

 It is crucial to have a clear understanding of the diagnosis and classification processes to ensure appropriate support and intervention for individuals with autism. If you don’t know what the terminology affiliated with autism in ICD 10.

Additional Common Autistic Behaviors

There are many behaviors associated with having autism. Keep in mind that everyone presents differently, which is why it is caused a spectrum disorder. However, there are common autism behaviors. Learn more about them. 

• Autism and Eye Rolling: Why It’s Odd, But Perfectly Okay
• Eye Contact Avoidance: 8 Best Ways to See Eye to Eye
• Behaving Badly: Is Using Autism as an Excuse Ever Right?
• 10 Proven Techniques for Managing Autism and Sensory Issues
• Understanding Neurodiversity: Uprising of the Neurodivergent
• 5 Ingenious Ways for Creating Boundaries in a Relationship
• Autism and ADHD: Making Sense of the Overlap
• Autism Masking & Code Switching: How to Redefine Acceptance
• Autistic Stimming Behaviors: Why We Do and How It’s Important
• Bottoms Up: Flipping Your World with Vestibular System Therapy
• OCD and Autism: Could You Have One Condition or Both?
• Autism in Sports: Hyper-Focus Can Be A Commanding Competitive Advantage