When were you diagnosed with autism?

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I'm just wondering at what age people were diagnosed with autism. Was it when you were a young kid? As an older kid? As a teenager? An adult? Or are you still waiting to be diagnosed?

I was diagnosed when I was 11 years old. Before that, I lived in a small town in the north where nobody knew what autism was. My parents knew something wasn't right as I didn't start speaking at a normal age. The way my mum and dad described me as a young kid was that, if they knew what autism was, they would've known straight away because I showed classic symptoms. The doctors just said I was a "slow learner" and that I was just naughty. My teachers would blame my parents for my behaviour and the doctors would say that my parents were "too soft" (weren't strict enough).

Anyway, I went through 4 primary schools, a secondary school and a lot of abusive teachers who didn't understand, before my mum gave up and moved to London (my mum and dad were divorced when I was 8 years old) to try and get help. I lived in London for less than a year when I finally got diagnosed.

I then went to a private school for autistic people at the age of 14 which helped me a lot. And now I've just finished three years of college.

I'm quite glad I got diagnosed as late as I did because I believe that if I was diagnosed when I lived in that small town, I would've been worse off. There's no specialised schools there and no teachers knew what autism was. I wouldn't have got the help I needed.

So, what's your story?

Hi Coda,

Haven't seen you in a while.

What will you do when you finish college?

I was diagnosed with autism at about age 3, about 1964.

I was never diagnosed when I was a child even though my intense special interests, bouncing a ball obsession, and failure to be accepted by a peer group, inability to make small talk should have been clear signs. I saw psychologists psychiatrists their main interest is getting you manageable with medication. When I was nineteen I had a serious breakdown I tried to explain something to my psychiatrist "I'm a genius!" the psychiatrist rather than looking into the fact that these words had something to do with happenings in my life dismissed them outright and was happy when over the process of treatment I actually came around to saying that I was "stupid" Ah what progress.

As far as I'm concerned people who get diagnosed with autism in their childhood are lucky. I have all this messed up machinery in my head from trying to cope with autism without a diagnosis, self-justifications, philosophising, pontificating, saying things and then other people just say "who cares". Well I care because if I leave that a blank space it might impact on my life.

Even now I don't have much confidence that a psychiatrist will give me a fair diagnosis, "who is this guy with all these ideas, well I better cut him down to size!".

I was diagnosed when I was 5 years old. My kindergarten teacher was the one to notice my symptoms. My parents don't really talk about my Aspergers much at all. But I guess it's less of a thing since I'm the only child they've raised, and I don't have any brothers or sisters for them to compare me to.

I had symptoms of Kanner/classic autism then.

That sort of autism was fairly known then.

The "higher" portion of the Spectrum wasn't well-known, though.

I was diagnosed in 2005 at age 25. It was my fourth evaluation. The first one was done by the school district and I was labeled as being emotionally and behaviorally disturbed. The second one from a neurologist said I had a possible personality problem. The third one by a psychologist said I had ADHD.

I was diagnosed at age 16

My Mom (idk about my dad) didn't knew about autism either but when she told me that I was still in diapers when I was 5. I became horrified at that fact and I was shock she didn't thought it was a red flag, she told me she thought I was just lazy and I didn't talk until I was 3 and the normal age for a baby to talk is 18 months so I can't believe she just thought I was lazy

I wasn't diagnosed until age 30, when my psychiatrist had no more ideas and my wife pushed him to refer me to someone who could test for ASD. Like some of the other posters, I wish I had been diagnosed earlier. It would have saved a lot of pain and suffering.

iirc i was diagnosed 3 years ago (age 28). it wasn't a meticulous process though, and the psychiatrist wasn't exactly a specialist in asd. he did say he had diagnosed a few people before, and that supposedly his son also has asperger's, but that was about it. i had already been reading about it for a while, and i never really trusted his expertise, but for some reason he wouldn't prescribe me adhd medication unless he was convinced that i had asd (probably trying to avoid some kind of liability. stimulants are tightly controlled and only rarely prescribed where i live)

at first i told him that i had read about it and that i thought i probably had it, and asked him what he thought about it. he said "nah, you have good eye contact and good communication skills. aspies have nearly obsessive interests. like, collecting all the information about one particular thing, like you'll ask them what the flag of, say, andorra is like, and..." -- "it's like the flag of france, except the middle rectangle is yellow, and there's a crest on top of it. it's a tiny country in between france and spain, and they have a bizarre political system. it's the only country where catalan is the national language" -- "okay... you got me intrigued. we should look into this asperger's thing"

other than finally getting access to ritalin, the most significant outcome for me was that, after being directly involved in the (rather short and informal) diagnostic process, my parents changed their attitude about me. they finally realized that i'm never going to "grow up", and that this is "adult me" already. it didn't really change much anything else to me, because asd is not a very pronounced thing in my case, and, most importantly, because i had already known for years that i had adhd, so that moment of "wow, so all this time, all my life, it wasn't my fault" had already happened

as a child, afaik, my verbal development was completely normal. according to what i've been told, what was noteworthy about me was that as soon as i learned to speak, i was already driving everybody crazy asking questions all the time . but i did have a strong tendency to either play by myself or just watch others playing, instead of participating. never changed... i was also very fearful of strangers sometimes, and i'd refuse to talk to them even when my parents would tell me that it was okay (or that i should). i grew up listening to my mother telling me all the time, "son, you're not an island". she was wrong

2.5 years old.

I was about 14 or 15, well actually i think my diagnoses was made around 14 but the information only was told to my dad when i was 15 because i had to get referrals and confirmations. So either way i was diagnosed in my first year of high school.

I think everything became really apparent when puberty hit. My anxiety increased dramatically and independence demands also increased. It was also apparent i wasn't developing emotionally like my sister or my peers did.

19. Post-High School life did not go smoothly

Hello. I was diagnosed with ASD - level 1 about three months ago, in April 2016. I'm 16 years-old. My psychiatrist was the one who was like "I think you're on the autism spectrum" so then I got evaluated by someone who knows autism, and what do you know, I have ASD. For me, I wish I was diagnosed with something younger because I had a lot more trouble in school then than now. But I am happy I figured it out before I was 18 because I feel like it would be harder than it is now.