I have several friends who were diagnosed with autism as adults, and it sounds like their assessment processes were very different from mine. I'm curious what people here experienced and how that differs by rough location (like country or region of the US), age, and year.

I was diagnosed in 2013 in the US southeast as part of a psychoeducational assessment. My mom and I met with two different people from a child/adolescent assessment team for 5 hours (plus an hour break for lunch), and then we met with them again a month later for the results. My mom filled out a developmental history questionnaire, Social Responsiveness Scale – Second Edition, and Autism Spectrum Rating Scales Parent Ratings form, and she was interviewed. I was also separately interviewed and completed the Reynolds Intellectual Assessment Scales, Beery-Buktenika Test of Visual-Motor Integration, Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement – Second Edition, Test of Pragmatic Language - Second Edition, Autism Spectrum Quotient, Adolescent Psychopathology Scale, Sentence Completion, and an informal sensory checklist.

In contrast, my partner was diagnosed by a non-specialist therapist when she was in college, and she only met for one extended therapy session (1.5 hours) for an interview, the RAADS-R, and EQ, and I gave the therapist some additional information about her. An online friend was diagnosed through his college counseling services in California, and he was interviewed and took the AQ, WAIS, MMPI-2, and Social Cognition Battery over 11 hours across 6 sessions. Finally, a friend of mine in his 30s recently got diagnosed by a specialist in Canada, and his assessment was more focused on mental health more generally; he was interviewed and filled out an alexithymia scale, a work and social adjustment scale, a social phobia inventory, a generalized anxiety disorder scale, an OCD inventory, a difficulties in emotional regulation scale, and a patient health questionnaire.

So now I'm curious! What all did it entail for you all, if you were old enough to know and remember?

It's true that assessments for adults are somewhat different to those for children.

ADOS-2 administered by a 1. clinical psychologist, 2. an experienced ABA clinician. Four professionals were involved in my diagnosis. ADOS is often call the “gold standard” in autism diagnosis.

Other IQ testing. I had been previously diagnosed with ADHD, anxiety, depression. Those diagnoses were reaffirmed and ASD level 2 was added.

Including parent interview, which was prob ADI-R, mine was 11 hours over 4 sessions. It was a full neuropsych assessment. My report was over 20 types of tests. I’m 38 and in Canada, but I also know of other clinicians (in my part of Canada) who just administered ADOS and did intake And parent interviews, which was financially cheaper, but I needed to be assessed for learning disabilities and other disorders, which were additionally diagnosed.

Mine happened during elementary school with a psychologist they called in, most of what I recall is just being confused about why I was pulled out of class to answer strange questions and do weird puzzles. Nobody told me I had any disabilities till grade 7 anyways when I had a very bad meltdown over the confusion about being given accommodations and not knowing why, I assume my parents were also involved but it was left out of my knowledge.

I know I also got tested for learning disabilities as well because they came back also with a NVLD diagnosis.

5 hours of mental hell. Nothing made sense, everything was a surprise I couldn’t prepare for, and I only received 30 minutes of break.

I shutdown as soon as I got out.

I was diagnosed within the school system. At 13 I took GARS-3 and WISC-V by my OT then when I got reassessed at 18 I took BASC-3, WAIS-IV and Vineland behavior scale third edition test that one took 2 hours I believe and it was kinda exhausting.

I feel like since this sub is for higher support needs people a lot of us were spotted early and were too young to remember. I have vague memories of my early therapies and assessments, but since I was so young, I don’t know what memories are from assessments and what memories are from therapy sessions. I didn’t even know I had “special needs“ at that age, so I had no idea that those therapies were therapy.

i was diagnosed when i was 15 by a clinical psychologist. i dont know exactly what they used to test me, but i do know they used the ADOS-2 and ADI-R tests. the first session was a 4 hour interview with my parents about me (i was not present), and then i was brought in to be assessed and it took around 4-5 hours as well. i think questionnaires were also given to my teachers, but im not 100% sure. i do know that my teachers were given questionnaires when i got assessed for ADHD by the same clinic.

i’ve also had a couple psycho educational assessments done previously, which kind of led up to the autism diagnosis, but ultimately i was diagnosed with ADHD 2 years before autism

ETA: previous psych-eds were done specifically to look at learning disabilities and not so much neurodevelopmental disorders. i did also get diagnosed with dyscalculia and mild dyslexia at the time.

Here in Italy I went to an autism center.

WAIS (for IQ), MMPI-2 (for personality disorders).

After that, "ADOS-2 module 4"(A mixture of observing your behavior and asking questions directly to you), "ADI-R"(my mom was interviewed). Plus questionnaires like "RAADS-R" and "AQ". It took a long time.

I read on reddit about an Italian person that was diagnosed just with one questionnaire "RAADS-R", but I doubt the reliability and even more so that he could use that to get accomodations.

•Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-2)

•Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)

•Childhood Autism Rating Scale -Second Edition, High Functioning (CARS2-HF)

•CARS2 Parent-Caregiver Questionnaire (CARS2-QPC)

•Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD)

•Patient Health Questionnaire (PHQ-9; Depression Screener)

•Vineland Adaptive Behaviour Scales, Third Edition (Vineland-3) Comprehensive Interview Form, completed by my father

•Adult ADHD Self-Report Scale (ASRS) Symptom Checklist

•Advanced Clinical Solutions Word Choice Test and Test of Premorbid Functioning

•Beck Depression Inventory – Second Edition (BDI-II)

•Brief Visuospatial Memory Test – Revised (BVMT-R)

•California Verbal Learning Test – Third Edition (CVLT-III)

•Conner’s Continuous Performance Test – Third Edition (CPT-3)

•Generalized Anxiety Disorder-7 (GAD-7)

•Logical Memory and Symbol Span from the Wechsler Memory Scale – Fourth Edition (WMS-IV)

•Rey-Osterrieth Complex Figure and Recognition Trial

•Test of Memory Malingering (TOMM)

•Verbal Fluency Test, Trail Making Test, and Colour-Word Interference Test from the Delis-Kaplan Executive Functions System (D-KEFS)

•Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale – Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV)

•Wechsler Individual Achievement Test – Third Edition (WIAT-III)

•Wisconsin Card Sorting Test

I was 3 so I dont remember but I have read my report and I THINK I was diagnosed with a few interviews with a psychologist and my parents then observed through 2 days of daycare and it was done with the ADOS and it was done in a team with my parents my daycare teacher a special education teacher an educational psychologist and a occupational therapist and a speech language therapist

I was diagnosed at 27. It was over the course of three months, several appointments that were up to 4 hours long. I think I had 1 for intake, 4 or 5 for assessment, and 1 for diagnosis. I was seen by two people. Both psychologists trained in diagnosing autism.

I had a lot of questionairs that I had to fill out at home. My mom was interviewed twice and a good friend that I had lived with recently once.

I had IQ-testing, neuropsych tests, MMPI-2, a coping style questionairre, structured autism interview (don't know which one), AQ, EQ, SQ, SRS something, I don' tknow if that's everything.

Diagnosed with ASD.

Diagnosis was confirmed again in a university hospital 2 years later. Allthough they were still using DSM-IV so they diagnosed me with autistic disorder.

The level 2 diagnosis came when I was 30 or 31 by my then psychiatrist. I had been going to her for two years and she assessed me to be level 2.

I'm in Belgium btw

I was diagnosed at 22 years old but my experience is similar to yours.

Mine was 8 hours totak of a multitude of tests, pretty sure many of the same ones you did, as well as parental interview and a lot of paper work. My mom also had to fill out a lot of info regardint my history

I had various tests but i do recall doing parts of the ados, RAADS-R, CAT-Q and an EQ.

I also had a follow up to discuss my results

I was Diagnosed "Autism Spectrum with Clinical criteria of Aspergers"

1.5 hours for an autism assessment seems...low? I dont know

I’m from Australia and was assessed and diagnosed last year. My assessment was over one day, maybe about 5 hours, with some breaks. First I did some paper questionnaires, then I did the ADOS-2 with the psychologist, which took the most time. After that was finished she did a phone interview with my mum asking questions about my childhood. There were also some online questions my family members and I did. Then a few week later I had an appointment to get the results.

Edit to add that I didn’t need to do the IQ because I was an adult and it was obvious I didn’t have an intellectual disability.

Early 2000s, northeastern USA. I got kicked out of school for what I now know were meltdowns, so my mom took me to a child psychologist (I think?). They talked to me for what didn’t feel like long, then they spoke to my mom privately. They told her I had autism and a psychotic disorder and then they gave her a prescription for me. They said she shouldn’t tell me.

That was it. Maybe the things we talked about were autism related, but I was a kid and genuinely thought I had depression or something. I knew very little about autism and it wasn’t a mainstream diagnosis like it is today.

27, AFAB non-binary, upper Midwest - medium sized city.

I initially went to a neuropsychologist at the recommendation of my university psych meds prescriber for ADHD testing.

I did a ~1 hr interview, two take home surveys (plus surveys for my spouse), a computer test at home, an ADOS session at the neuropsych’s recommendation, and then a ~ 1hr test session with a variety of tests like the bender test and WAIS (there were more, but I can’t remember them).

The session for the ADOS was with a different assessor and took about 45 minutes (I thought I had failed somehow, haha).

So in total three “testing” sessions that amounted to about three hours and a feedback session where I got my diagnosis.

I had a 4ish hour appointment with a psychologist. she did wais, mmpi, spq(schizotypal personality questionaire), ados. there were some others but those I remember.

Early 20s, female, diagnosed by UK licensed clinician psychologist 2 years ago. As far as I remember, he specializes in autism and ADHD, and also seemed to be autistic as well (he used his life examples when explaining to me some symptoms related to autism).

I initially came to him for depression treatment plus had ADHD suspicions that me and my mom wanted to look into. He held screening process, which consisted of 1 hour interview and bunch of forms being sent to me, my close friend and my mom. Results came back with recommendation to undergo autism assessment. Took 5 hours for full assessment and 1 hour of feedback session.

As for tests themselves, I will just state ones, that are related to autism. The initial test was RAADS-R, but done with my clinician supervision and on paper. Then there was 3 hour long family interview with me and my mom, that was mostly going into details of my childhood and my current life. Then there was 2 hour behavior assessment (it supposed to be 3 hours long, but was shorten due to me attending depression therapy sessions with him). That consisted of a bunch of smaller tests, like making a story with a picture book or random items, describing pictures, answering relationship-related questions and so. They were overall called ADOS-2 - Module 4 in my final diagnostic paper. Me and my mom were also given ABAS-3 test at the end as well.

Diagnosed at 19 during a burnout with ASD without intellectual impairment and AD(H)D (combined type), after something like 8 hours or more of "therapy" where two specialised nurses (therapists) or a psychologist asked me questions and had me manipulate toys, do imagination exercises, read and then explain stories, all while taking notes on a clipboard.

they had both my parents come in together for an interview (maybe 45 min), and one high school friend (we spent 3 years of state/public boarding school together and one year of university). i did not sit in those interviews.

one interview with the head psychiatrist of the whole adult autism unit (biggest in the region).

one IQ test (wechsler IV if i recall correctly) after which they gave me an AD(H)D diagnosis, which i had not anticipated.

i think in total i may have had... 9 different appointments? the whole thing took six months

i didn't fill in any questionnaires by myself, nor did my parents. i live in France and everything was done in the public sector in a major hospital (outpatient).

edit: i was 19 in 2019. they also gave me diagnoses for generalised anxiety disorder and depression. i presented some adhd traits but the low working memory score on the IQ test made them confirm the adhd diagnosis.

Diagnosed in the Netherlands at the age of 10 in 2015. Diagnosis was ASD (thus DMS-V). I wasn't diagnosed with a level, but I'm for sure level 1.

Assessment was (from what I remember) talking with my parents, an IQ test, drawing people and trees, inkt blob test, finish sentences tests (to evaluate my "ego" or something) and three sessions where a therapist was just socializing and playing games with me.

I think in total it was about 5-6 sessions.

I think most in this sub are level 2-3, thus for sure had a different diagnosis experience then most people diagnosed in their adult live, because the age and probably the prominence of autism.

Here in Germany I had to fill out a very lengthy general assessment before the appointmens (idk if it had a name but it included generally questions about my life), the AQ and some exercises that showed pictures of expressions of eyes and I had choose the emotion they expressed.

I went to a specialised autism clinic. Summary was approx 5h of assessment spread through multiple days into 1h sessions.

The rest was mostly them asking me specific questions and me answering.

My parents dont live here and are both living in different countries and they don’t speak the language, so I had to ask them some stuff about my childhood for the assessment and transfer that to the clinician. My husband was asked for like 10 minutes as well, for also reassessing my previous bipolar diagnosis.

I have received the diagnosis from the psych I go to every week as well, through similar processes and she has added some comorbid things related to it, since we have a more detailed interaction.

My assessment was done by a neuropsychologist. I think she spoke with my mom beforehand, and she asked me a few questions about myself and my interests. Most of the assessment though was just a series of different types of IQ tests. She was looking for a discrepancy in my IQ scores to determine if I was autistic, and there was a large discrepancy with very high verbal cognitive skills, and just barely average visual/spatial cognitive skills

I was diagnosed in the hospital when I was tiny but they wanted to do a proper evaluation when I was about 6, to comply with legal stuff and before I could be enrolled in any kind of school I had to have one. And I was completely unable to do it. It involved being sat in a room for 2 straight hours at a time, 5-6 days in a row, to do visual and written tests. I don’t know any child even a neurotypical one that would be able to engage in that properly. I was just really scared and fixated on a toy Dalmatian dog the evaluator had in her office and wouldn’t do the other stuff (that’s most of what I remember)

I was diagnosed after having a few random conversations with my doctor so I didn’t take any tests or anything She was just like I have moderate needs autism and Adhd and she can tell by the way I was moving and talking to her 🤷🏾‍♀️ So when ppl talk about these tests I have no idea what y’all referring to

But I also left a long paper trail of me going in and out of the hospital, so after being diagnosed BIPOLAR, BPD AND SCHIZOAFFECTIVE disorder and after taking all those meds and nothing work I saw a new doctor and she looked it over and then had some random convos with me and then told me that she’s pretty sure I’m on the spectrum, but I never been tested other than how I was communicating with her but I also bring something to play with while we are talking so I can pay attention so I think it’s things like that that I’m doing that’s making her say that

Mine was in multi parts and comprised of the ADOS 2 and ADI-R. I am in the UK

I dont know all the names of the tests but i got diagnosed over days (like-- i went there for a lot of days, staying there for one hour) and i did the SRS-2 and others i cant remember.

I got interviewed separately and then they interviewed my mom, and i also did numerous tests for cognitive abilities, attention span, IQ and other things, i had a lot of questionaries to answer with my mom about things like personality, childhood historic, etc

Then the results came as ADHD innatentive and level 2 autism, i live in Brazil and this was in a private clinic since the universal healthcare (SUS) one would take me a lot of time. I still have pictures of the results papers but theyre all in portuguese

I don't remember my first one because I was way too young. I do remember making patterns and shapes happen with cubes while looking at pictures of the pattern they want me to make.

I was diagnosed in the last millennium (1999) and in Scotland/The UK.

It was basically appointments with CAMHS (Child and Adolescent Mental Health Service) and then an Autism Specialist from where I live now diagnosed me.

However the Learning Support Teacher and My Guidance Teacher at school had an idea that I was not neurotypical so they got the Educational Psychologist involved who managed to get the ASD assessments moving.

Five (I think) appointments over several weeks with a psychologist who specialized in testing. A few one hour one on one sessions talking about my history, alternating with standardized testing sessions. Ended up with Autism Spectrum Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, ADHD, and something else I don't remember... so my running joke is "ASD, ADHD, SAD, GAD, EIEIO..."

I don’t remember it. I was a very young child and unsure if the assessments were the same in late 80s/ early 90s .

Diagnosed at age 35 by a psychiatrist who had decades of experience diagnosing for a children's hospital. Through years of monthly meetings and information about my childhood they were able to diagnose me

I don't fully understand. I have a couple assessments.

I only know what I know about the results of my first assessment from what's cited in the report from the last one. The first one was in 2nd grade, so I would have been 7. There was a woman I'd never met with a spiral bound book of questions on a triangular stand who came to my school. She told me I was really smart and I answered an 8th grade level question about chemistry, what makes iron rust. That's all I remember. I was told I almost got diagnosed but didn't. The most recent report, from the people who got to read the first report, said that I was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder in 2nd grade and qualified for special education from 2nd to 5th grade. I wasn't put in it.

In 5th grade I was getting neurofeedback and a shit ton of vitamins from an organization, I also couldn't eat gluten or casein for almost 3 years because of them. They did a neuropsych assessment. This was an IQ test with puzzles and a paper questionnaire with all sorts of questions. the kohs block test is my favorite. I was having an awful time and I was focused on trying to tell them I felt depressed. I didn't know about autism and I didn't think enough about the questions that weren't about depression so I said no. Those questions are really hard because I can't always think of my own words so if people tell me something about myself I believe and repeat it even if it's not true. I allegedly stopped qualifying for special education then but was still in occupational therapy.

The last test was when I was 16. I had learned about autism this time, but not that I already had it. They did a proper ADOS assessment with telling stories about inanimate objects and a book that had pictures but no words. It was during covid and they made me wear a clear face shield so that he could see what faces I was making. I thought I was hyper aware of everything I did in front of him like stimming and where I was looking but he wrote in the report that I didn't use gestures and only engaged in conversation about horseshoe crabs, which I didn't notice. He didn't give me a level with my diagnosis but told me since I could usually talk and mask to an extent back then to look at stuff about asperger's even though it's outdated. He gave me and my mom both questionnaires and asked her a whole lot about my childhood and development. He gave me the adult questionnaire because the kid one was for little kids, which I find ridiculous because I'm not the only person to get assessed for autism as a teenager.

Sorry this is absurdly long. I'm mad nobody told me, or if they did they let me not understand why I'm like this or get the right help.

Need some information: what are the major differences in being assessed through college? Is it a good idea to approach my college councelling services? What would that mean for my future?