University of New South Wales, Australia.
The Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (Autism CRC), Australia.
Autism. 2020 Aug;24(6):1311-1327. doi: 10.1177/1362361320903128. Epub 2020 Feb 28.
More adults are getting assessed for possible autism. Here, we give an overview on what is already known about autism diagnosis in adulthood and find areas that need more research. We divided results from the studies we found into six topics of (1) rates of autism in different groups; (2) the process of getting an autism diagnosis in adulthood; (3) gender; (4) personality traits, abilities and behaviours of diagnosed adults; (5) mental and physical health conditions that occur together with autism; and (6) how adults think and feel about being assessed and diagnosed. We found that adults often have strong emotions after being diagnosed, the process of getting a diagnosis can be unclear and different for everyone, and not many support services are available for adults. More research on diagnosing adults with intellectual disability, differences between early and late-diagnosed adults, and support after diagnosis would be useful.
越来越多的成年人接受自闭症评估。在此，我们概述了目前已知的成年人自闭症诊断情况，并找到了需要进一步研究的领域。我们将找到的研究结果分为六个主题：（1）不同群体中的自闭症发生率；（2）成年人自闭症诊断的过程；（3）性别；（4）确诊成年人的个性特征、能力和行为；（5）与自闭症同时发生的精神和身体健康状况；（6）成年人对评估和诊断的看法和感受。我们发现，成年人在被诊断后常常情绪激动，诊断过程因人而异且不明确，并且针对成年人的支持服务也非常有限。进一步研究智力障碍成年人的诊断、早期和晚期诊断成年人之间的差异，以及诊断后的支持将是有益的。
