Poll for those OFFICIALLY diagnosed as adults

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If you want to see the results of the post, just click the last option of the poll. Also, I find a website for my province for all psychologists. Through there I was able to find several capable of diagnosing ASDs. Perhaps they have one of those types of websites for your province/state/country.

@littlelily613: I thank you for your kindness there. I get touchy whenever "official" gets mentioned along with "diagnosis".

Back from the Doctor's, and yes it is official topic

I was dx at 45, and redx at 53, perhaps the first onne did not stick.

Two different doctors: The first one almost did not believe it (believe it or not). He was surprised.

The tests were done twice because the original results were mislaid, and both tests were paid for by outside sources. I was very lucky.
The second said he could see it as soon as I walked in, but I did the tests again, he said if he had seen me when I was a child he would have diagnosed it then as well.

This sure cleared up a lot of puzzles and questions I had. And it is better to know.

I was diagnosed at 47 with Aspergers, and then diagnosed with PDD NOS when the psychiatrist found out I had a speech delay until age 4.

The reason I phrased it like that is because a lot of people can self-diagnose themselves, but I was basically curious if any adults actually were diagnosed (by a professional) with classic autism. It seems strange that it would be overlooked in childhood, so I was wondering if it is actually known to have happened (and according to my poll, it is not common, but it does)......

I hope no one took my poll as an attempt to not include the others, which is why I am glad I left an option for other those not diagnosed in adulthood (yet) to click. That was really the sole purpose for my poll. Hopefully you get some answers soon too, if that is what you desire!

Just out of curiousity...and perhaps I am getting a bit too nosy now....but are you aware why they gave you PDD NOS rather than classic autism in light of a speech delay?

I was diagnosed with AS last week.

I am still waiting for all the paperwork to filter out to my therapist and physician.

My psychiatrist was a major in the Airforce reserves. I don't think he considered Aspergers as a limiting condition for me because I had been able to hold down a job on a military installation as a civilian for 23 years, and at most thought it was mild; in midlife people see what you have accomplished and what you look like on the outside, not the internal struggle you have gone through your entire life.

I could show you pictures of when I was young, after the smile went away in the baby picture, and it is obvious that there was something wrong and I was lost in the world. However, I managed to get the spirit back of that happy baby for the majority of my life and after forty years finally got fairly comfortable with verbal communication.

I think he was convinced I had mild Aspergers and could not keep me in that criteria when he found out about the speech delay. I'm assuming he didn't think I met all of the other criteria for Autism because of my accomplishments and the field I was in, that required skills in social interaction, so he put me in the PDD NOS category instead.

It was absolute hell, doing my best all my life to act normal, losing my ability to do it, and then having to admit I was not normal. The severe anxiety was what he treated; there wasn't anything he could do for my underlying neurological condition. I was also diagnosed with Alexithymia, and ADHD, as comorbid conditions. And, auto immune issues that have been harder to deal with.

I had extreme tactile sensitivity all my life, and always wondered why; this was my only hint that I might have some form of Autism. Back in 1960-64 my doctor just told my mother don't worry about the speech delay; he doesn't talk because you give him everything he needs. I guess he too, like the psychiatrist, thought I looked to smart to have much wrong with me.

I haven't been officially diagnosed but I had all the symptoms of hyperlexia too, but that condition wasn't recognized until 1967.

I keep hoping I can bring back the spirit of that smiling baby.

And another point that is perhaps the most important point about Autism; caring parents and family make all the difference in the world. Temple Grandhin's mother was alot like mine. She never gave up on me and neither did my sister. My sister has Aspergers, and did not have the speech delay or extremely odd behavior that I exhibited during my youth. She was also diagnosed in adulthood.

My mother was extremely social and happy unlike my father who was unable to show emotion and did not speak to her during her three year marriage; I still have never had more than a paragraph of conversation with him. He left and all I had was the overwhelming social influence of my mother. She literally saved me from being institutionalized for life when I was young.

After that it is my wife who has saved me for 21 years. There aren't too many people that are as lucky as I was in the family that I had; no one as lucky as far as I can see.

mis diagnosed with mental retardation as a child. Right diagnosis or autistic disorder as adult. the team that diagnosed me said it was a shoking case. that I had not been diagnosed right befor. I looked over my doctos sholder at the computor last tiem I was there and I am upset taht I am still diagnosed with moderate learnign disability! after the IQ test that showed me IQ can not be mesured! I thoguht after a diagnosis of autistic disorder they would get ride of that!

I was diagnosed with PDDNOS last week

Diagnosed with Asperger's in adulthood.
How it was put (paraphrased)
"You have a touch of autism (...) most likely Asperger's (...) I think you've achieved too much for it to be full-blown autism".

I was diagnosed in early 2008 at the age of 26

with Aspergers?

I was diagnosed at the age of 28 with Asperger's. I didn't really have a diagnosis before then, since autism wasn't recognized as a spectrum of disorders until I was an adult, and I was too high-functioning for an autism diagnosis.

I self-diagnosed when I was 52, but ignored official diagnosticians for another four or five years after that. Now, though, I have official accreditation. There's a little bit of intellectual satisfaction, there's a little bit of recognition, but - I'm still concerned about the unknowing masses out there, for whom autism isn't a possibility, but whose autism is irrevocably a fact.

Until normal people's realities include autistic people too, we're always going to be on the outside. It's not our fault, but you shut us out.