I understand. I am a woman who did my testing after I got my masters degree. I was very much an adult who masked my entire life including academic settings. To get a psychologist, speech therapist, ot- would all require a referral from a medical doctor. At least in the states. So again, she would have to some extent be trusting of the route the doctor took to get her to diagnosis. It took me 6 weeks of observation and testing but my doctor had to refer me to the correct team of people(many phds and md’s). It is very much medical testing that is done to diagnose. In terms of self diagnosis for adults, I can’t speak for everyone on the spectrum, but personally I feel like it’s diagnosing yourself with diabetes or cancer. You are not qualified to do it yourself. It requires a person who is either an md or a PhD to formally diagnose you and as we’ve both noted a lot of time. I understand our health care system is broken and not everyone in the states has access to health care- but the normalization of self diagnosis of anything is a risky road. I think it’s one thing to say “I have autistic traits” vs “I have Autism” if you don’t have the qualifications to diagnose yourself… you can’t diagnose yourself?