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Autism in adults often does not look like the version most diagnostic tools were built for. Many of those tools were designed around presentations in children, and around the particular ways autism shows up in young boys. They miss what autism looks like in someone who has spent thirty or forty years learning, often without knowing it, to appear neurotypical.
A proper adult autism assessment is structured to look beneath that learning. It uses tools — the MIGDAS-2, the CAT-Q, the SRS-2, the WHODAS — adapted for adults, and it places those tools inside a developmental history that has often been interpreted away by previous clinicians. The work is to read the neurotype, not the masking on top of it.
This matters because diagnosis from the surface can go in either direction. It can miss autism in someone whose adaptation has been very good and very expensive. It can also reach for autism as an explanation when the picture is closer to social anxiety, ADHD, trauma response, or OCD. The assessment is built to make the more accurate reading possible.
This service is for adults seeking diagnostic clarity about whether autism is part of their picture. It is particularly relevant for late recognition, for high-masking presentations, for women and gender-diverse adults whose autism has not previously been recognised, and where solid clinical documentation is needed for NDIS, workplace, or educational support.
Validated questionnaires — CAT-Q (camouflaging), SRS-2 (social responsiveness), WHODAS (functional impact), plus developmental history and sensory inventory — capture ground a 90-minute consultation cannot. They also surface patterns the conversation can then look at carefully.
A 90-minute diagnostic interview using the MIGDAS-2, designed for adult presentations. The conversation works through developmental history, current functioning, social communication style, sensory processing, the structure of interests and attention, and the specific masking and adaptation strategies that have been built over time.
Adult autism often co-occurs with, or is obscured by, anxiety, ADHD, trauma response, or OCD. The assessment works through the differential explicitly. The aim is the most accurate reading, not the most affirming one.
The conclusion is documented in a clinical report suitable for NDIS, workplace, or educational use. The report explains the diagnostic reasoning, including which traits were considered, how they sat against the criteria, and which alternative explanations were considered. Where autism is identified, the report covers the specific shape of the neurotype in this person. Where it is not, the report says so and points toward what the picture is.
A dedicated session to work through the report with the psychologist. The aim is that the person leaves with a clear enough reading of their own neurotype to act on it — in conversation with workplaces, with the NDIS, with family, and with themselves.
When the assessment is the right step, the outcome is a clearer reading of the neurotype underneath, and either a diagnostic conclusion that names it accurately, or a clear note that the picture is something else. Either is a real outcome.
Where autism is the conclusion, the report is documentation the person can act on outside biio. — for NDIS support, workplace adjustment, educational accommodation, and for the conversations with family that often follow a late diagnosis. Where autism is not the conclusion, the assessment still leaves the person with a more accurate reading of their own pattern than they had before, and a clearer next step.
What the assessment does not do is teach the person how to live with their neurotype. That is the rest of the pathway.