i hope this doesnt come off as a weird thing to ask or something im sorry
recently i tried to go through the process of getting evaluated for autism and adhd at a clinic because ive been struggling in college, mostly it was to get medicated for the adhd that i knew i had but my dad suggested also getting evaluated for autism, which was something i had been curious about for a while now.
im not going to make some long list of all my traits or whatever but the point is that theres definitely evidence to support it. despite this, i straight up just did not get evaluated for autism or recieve any sort of behavioral or social evaluation, which aside from the medication is what i was most interested in. i saw some minor inconsistencies in the final report and am generally slightly distrustful of medical professionals, and i ended up feeling misunderstood in anything not directly relating to adhd.
i brought this up to my therapist along with the fact that i felt i recieved no evaluation for autism, and she said "well it looks like they did administer the weschler (wais-5), which would be the main sign of autism since it shows pretty distinct patterns and if they didnt see those then youre probably not autistic and didnt need further testing". i was kind of confused, because to my understanding this is an IQ test (a system which is known to have eugenicist origins) and is generally not very reliable as an actual test of intellegence and wouldnt have a big relation to autism specifically, but overall im just starting to feel like maybe im just wrong?? i didnt even recieve a basic screener, it was literally just this and they basically told me "stay in therapy and join clubs, take social skills lessons and then if youre still struggling socially you can come back for a re-evaluation"(further context, i have been in therapy since i was 10, i am 18). i dont know basically im just asking if my therapists opinion has validity here and if this is standard practice for autism evaluations.
Sorry it took so long to respond to this one. I kept reading it, and didn't know how to respond, but I feel like I'm ready now.
After a bit of research, it seems like the WAIS-5 is used as PART of an autism assessment, but not a standalone tool. It's to figure out cognitive strengths and weaknesses, as well as comorbid learning disabilities. If all they did was administer the WAIS-5, then I feel you should push for a second opinion. I understand that advocating for yourself can be tough, but maybe talk to your parents about this. They might be able to help.
I can't say whether you're autistic or not, but from what you said, it does sound like they kind of half-assed the assessment. I hope you can get things figured out, and again, sorry for the late reply.
I have both been through an autism and ADHD evaluation as an adult (diagnosed with both) and am now a speech-language pathologist on a multidisciplinary team that does autism evaluations, as well as having recently finished a PhD that involved reading a lot of recent and older research literature on the subject.
The WAIS-5 is absolutely not 'the main sign of autism' or any type of screening tool that would be used to indicate the need for an autism evaluation. It's an IQ test. It can tell you things like how a person's working memory compares to their verbal comprehension compares to their visual spatial abilities compares to their processing speed, etc. There are patterns in differences between scores that are more likely to show up in autistic people than neurotypical people (see https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11110614/ for a review on common cognitive profiles in autism and ADHD), but that's something a psychologist can look at in addition to autism-specific tools, not in place of them.
If this psychologist ruled out autism without at least giving you some kind of autism-specific screening or assessment tool like the SRS-2 (Social Responsiveness Scale-2nd edition) or the SCQ (Social Communication Questionnaire), they didn't take your concerns seriously and have nothing useful to say about whether or not you might be autistic. There are plenty of tools that are easy to administer that can tell a psychologist whether it's worth doing a more in-depth evaluation for autism. The WISC isn't one of them.
If you're still interested in being evaluated, I'd look for somewhere that specifically mentions expertise in evaluating autism in adults (which I realize can be hard to find, though it's easier than it used to be).
