Receiving an autism diagnosis in your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s or even 60s may seem daunting, but a new study from psychologists in Bath and London finds that the link between the age at which someone gets diagnosed has little bearing on their quality of life.

Parents often wonder if their child finding out they are autistic earlier or later will have an impact on their lives in the long term. While many people who discover they are autistic as adults wonder what life would have been like if they had found out earlier. Other factors were more strongly linked to quality of life: Autistic women reported a better quality of life than autistic men, and people who had additional mental health conditions reported a lower quality of life. Because we know that many autistic people experience a very poor quality of life and well-being, this begs the question whether finding out you are autistic earlier in life improves outcomes. “Our findings did not suggest this. For some people, finding out they are autistic sooner rather than later was linked to a better quality of life. For others, finding out later was better. Overall, there was no overall link between the age they found out and their quality of life.” “There could be many reasons for this. Getting an autism diagnosis does not always lead to any meaningful additional support, so it could be that autistic people who learn they are autistic at an earlier age did not necessarily experience a benefit to their life quality. Equally, a late diagnosis in adulthood can be a positive experience, helping people to make sense of themselves, which may improve their self-reported quality of life. The take-away message is that the impact of an autism diagnosis on someone’s quality of life is different for everyone. And there may be other, individual factors that are more important to focus on.” “Additionally, being male and having additional mental health conditions was linked with poor quality of life. These observations highlight the importance of considering support strategies that are gender-specific to have a more targeted focus on improving autistic people’s mental health, to improve their life outcomes. There has understandably been quite a lot of discussion on autism and mental health in females in recent years but, based on these findings, we should not overlook the needs to autistic males who might also be struggling.”

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