Category: Assessments

Scott McKirdy is a Registered Psychologist and co-owner of Solasta Counselling in Calgary, where he conducts adult autism and ADHD assessments. View Scott’s profile >>

If you’re considering an autism assessment as an adult, the not-knowing is often the hardest part — not just whether you’re autistic, but what you’re actually signing up for. How many appointments. What gets asked. How long you’ll be waiting for an answer. This is a plain walkthrough of the real process, start to finish, so you can go in knowing what to expect.

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Step 1: The Free Consultation Call

Before anything formal starts, most practices — including Solasta — offer a short, no-obligation consultation call. This is where you talk through why you’re seeking an assessment, ask questions about the process, and get a feel for whether the clinician is a good fit. Nothing is being evaluated here; it’s purely informational, and there’s no pressure to commit afterward.

Step 2: The Interview and Standardized Testing

The bulk of the assessment happens across two to three appointments of roughly two to three hours each, built around two core components: a detailed clinical interview covering your personal and developmental history, current challenges, and the specific experiences that led you to seek an assessment, and structured, standardized testing using gold-standard instruments — the ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition), the ADI-R (Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised), and the MIGDAS-2 (Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, a sensory-based format that’s often a better fit for adults who mask well or present atypically).

These two pieces don’t necessarily happen in a fixed order, and they’re sometimes woven together within the same session rather than run as strictly separate appointments — the exact structure depends on your clinician and how you present. A good clinician also won’t run every available tool on every client by default; tool selection should be tailored to you specifically.

Step 3: A Note on Childhood Information

One of the most common worries people raise at this stage: do I need someone who knew me as a kid to confirm what I was like? Not necessarily. Collateral information from a parent or childhood observer can add useful context, but plenty of adults seeking a late diagnosis simply don’t have access to that — and a thorough clinician should be able to build an accurate picture from the clinical interview, standardized tools, self-report measures, and your own detailed account of your life, without it.

Step 4: Scoring and the Written Report

Once testing wraps up, the clinician scores the results and writes up findings — this typically takes three to four weeks. What you get at the end should be a substantial document, not a one-page summary: a genuinely thorough report runs 20 to 30 pages and covers diagnostic impressions with clinical rationale, a profile of your strengths and support needs, and practical recommendations for things like workplace accommodations and daily-life strategies. It should be written to actually be useful to you, your doctor, or your employer — not just a checkbox.

Step 5: The Feedback Session

Once the report is ready, you’ll sit down with your clinician to go through the findings in plain language — not jargon, not a data dump. If autism is identified, this is where you find out what that means for you specifically: your particular profile, not a generic description of the diagnosis. This is also the point where next steps get discussed, including what post-assessment support might look like.

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How Much Does an Adult Autism Assessment Cost?

This varies by clinic, but as a real reference point: comprehensive adult autism assessments at Solasta in Calgary start from $3,250, reflecting the multi-session process, standardized tools, scoring, and detailed report involved. It’s a genuine investment, which is exactly why it’s worth knowing upfront what you’re paying for rather than being surprised partway through.

You also don’t typically need to pay the full amount upfront — payment is usually split across the process rather than due as one lump sum before you start, which makes the cost easier to plan around. And depending on which clinician you see and your specific insurance plan, direct billing may be available for part or all of the cost — it’s not universal across every assessor or every plan, so it’s worth confirming on your consultation call whether it applies to your situation.

For context on timing: the wait for an adult autism assessment through Alberta’s public system can run two to three years. Going private typically means four to six weeks from your first consultation call to a finished report — a meaningfully different timeline if you’ve already been waiting a long time for answers.

Depending on the outcome, some people are also eligible to apply for the Disability Tax Credit — worth raising with your clinician if it’s relevant to you.

How to Prepare for an Adult Autism Assessment

There’s no strict prep required, but a few things make the process smoother:

Write down specific examples, not just impressions. “I struggle socially” is harder to work with than “I need a full day alone to recover after a family gathering.” Specific, concrete moments give your clinician more to work with than general self-descriptions.

Gather anything you already have, but don’t stress if you don’t. Old report cards, past therapy notes, or a family member’s recollections can help — but as covered above, their absence doesn’t derail an accurate assessment.

Expect some of it to feel emotional. Talking through years of not quite understanding why certain things were harder for you than for other people can bring up real feelings, sometimes unexpectedly. That’s normal, not a sign anything’s going wrong.

Come with your actual questions. Cost, timeline, what happens if the result is inconclusive, whether the report will be useful for workplace accommodations — a good clinician would rather answer these upfront than have you find out partway through.

Why This Matters: Autism in Adults Is Often Missed

Many autistic adults weren’t identified in childhood — not because they weren’t autistic, but because they masked effectively, or because clinical understanding of how autism presents (particularly in women and non-binary people) has shifted significantly in recent years. A late diagnosis is just as valid as an early one, and for a lot of people it’s the first time a lifetime of specific experiences finally has an explanation.

Who’s Actually Behind an Assessment Matters

The process above is fairly standard across good clinics, but who’s running it isn’t. At Solasta, adult autism assessments are co-led by Scott McKirdy, MC, Registered Psychologist, and Dr. Gillian McKirdy, Psy.D., Registered Psychologist — both trained in the ADOS-2, ADI-R, and MIGDAS-2, with additional specific training in assessing autistic women, a group historically underdiagnosed by tools originally normed on a narrower population. The full assessment team also includes Sabrina Minor, Sarah Choudhry, and Misha Waheed, registered and registered provisional psychologists who each bring their own clinical background to the assessment process. For Indigenous clients specifically, Randi Sager offers assessments adapted for Indigenous populations, recognizing that standard diagnostic tools weren’t developed or normed with Indigenous communities in mind and don’t always translate accurately across cultural context.

Ready to get some answers? Book a free consultation call or learn more about adult autism assessments at Solasta.

Scott McKirdy is a Registered Psychologist and co-owner of Solasta Counselling in Calgary, where he conducts adult autism and ADHD assessments. View Scott’s profile >>

Why So Many Are Diagnosed Late

If you’ve spent most of your life feeling like you’re working harder than everyone else just to keep up (socially, emotionally, professionally)  and never quite understanding why, you’re not alone. For many women and girls, that experience is one that has been unrecognised for decades.

Autism in women and girls is real, common, and significantly underdiagnosed. The reasons are complex, but they’re not a reflection of how autistic these women are. They’re a reflection of how limited our understanding of autism has been, and how long diagnostic frameworks were built around a narrow, male-centred picture of what autism looks like.

At Solasta Counselling, we conduct adult autism assessments in Calgary for women who are seeking answers — often for the first time, often after years of misdiagnosis, and often with a profound sense of relief that what they’ve been experiencing finally has an explanation.

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Why Autism Looks Different in Women and Girls

The history of autism research is largely a history of studying boys and men. Early diagnostic criteria were developed from observations of male presentations, which means the traits most associated with autism in the public imagination (the socially withdrawn child, the obsessive train enthusiast, the bluntly literal communicator) skew heavily male.

Autistic women and girls often present differently. Not because they are less autistic, but because they have typically learned, often from a very young age, to observe and imitate neurotypical social behaviour in order to fit in. This process is called masking or camouflaging, and it is exhausting.

Masking can look like:

• Carefully watching how others interact and replicating it
• Scripting conversations in advance
• Suppressing stimming or self-regulatory behaviours in public
• Developing elaborate social personas that feel nothing like the inner self
• Becoming highly attuned to others’ emotions as a survival strategy

The result is a woman who appears socially competent — who has friends, holds down a job, maintains relationships — but who comes home every day completely depleted.

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Signs of Autism in Women and Girls

Because in autism in women and girls, masking can be so effective, the signs are frequently subtler and harder to recognise than the presentations most people associate with autism. Some of the most common patterns include:

Profound exhaustion after social interaction

Even social situations that went well can leave autistic women feeling completely drained. The mental effort of reading the room, monitoring responses, and managing the gap between how you feel and how you’re expected to appear takes a significant toll.

Intense, focused interests

Deep passion for specific topics, characters, creative worlds, animals, or subjects is common in autistic women — but the interests often align with socially accepted areas (books, animals, psychology, a TV series) which makes them less visible as a potential autism trait.

Sensory sensitivities

Discomfort or distress in response to certain sounds, textures, lights, smells, or physical sensations. Many autistic women describe spending significant energy managing sensory environments — avoiding certain fabrics, finding background noise unbearable, or feeling overwhelmed in busy public spaces.

Difficulties with unspoken social rules

Understanding the unwritten rules of social interaction( why people say one thing and mean another, how to interpret tone and subtext, when to speak and when not to) can require conscious, effortful processing rather than intuition.

A strong sense of being different

Many autistic women describe a persistent, lifelong feeling of not quite fitting in and of watching social interactions from the outside and not understanding the rules that everyone else seems to know automatically.

Anxiety and co-occurring conditions

Anxiety, depression, OCD, and eating disorders are all significantly more common in autism in women and girls than in the general population and are frequently the presenting concern that brings women to mental health services, while the underlying autism goes undetected.

Emotional intensity and sensitivity

Deep empathy, strong emotional responses, and difficulty regulating intense feelings are common and frequently misread as anxiety, mood disorder, or personality traits rather than recognised as part of an autistic profile.

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Why Are So Many Women Diagnosed Late?

The short answer is that the system wasn’t built with them in mind.

Diagnostic tools for autism were largely developed and validated on male populations. Many of the behaviours used as diagnostic markers (restricted interests, social withdrawal, lack of imaginative play) are less likely to be present or visible in autistic girls, who often develop compensatory strategies early and are more motivated to observe and imitate social behaviour.

Girls who struggle socially are more likely to be described as shy, anxious, or sensitive. Their difficulties are more likely to be attributed to personality than neurology. Their interests are more likely to be seen as enthusiasm rather than restricted focus.

By the time many women seek an autism assessment (often in their 30s, 40s, or later) they may have accumulated a long history of misdiagnosis: anxiety disorder, depression, borderline personality disorder, or simply being told they’re too much, or not enough.

Some women come to assessment because their child has been diagnosed with autism and they recognise themselves in the description. Others come because burnout has finally made the lifelong effort of masking unsustainable. Others simply reach a point where they deserve to know.

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What Does an Adult Autism Assessment Involve for Women?

At Solasta, our adult autism assessments are conducted by psychologists using gold-standard diagnostic tools including the ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition) and the ADI-R (Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised), alongside a comprehensive clinical interview.

We understand that autism in women and girls can look quite different from textbook presentations, and our psychologists approach every assessment with that awareness. We don’t expect you to match a stereotype and we’re looking at your whole picture, like your history, your experiences, how you’ve adapted, and what it’s actually cost you.

The assessment process involves:

• A clinical interview exploring your developmental history, current functioning, and the experiences that brought you to assessment
• Administration of standardised diagnostic tools
• Integration of any collateral information (school records, previous assessments, input from a partner or family member if relevant)
• A feedback session where results are discussed in plain language
• A comprehensive written report you can use for workplace accommodations, support services, or personal understanding

No referral is required. You can contact Solasta directly to book a free 20-minute consultation.

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What a Late Diagnosis Can Mean

A late autism diagnosis doesn’t change who you are. But for many women, it changes everything about how they understand themselves.

It explains decades of exhaustion. It reframes the social struggles that were blamed on personal failings. It gives language to a lifelong experience of difference that was real but invisible.

It also opens practical doors like workplace accommodations, access to support services, and therapeutic approaches specifically designed for autistic adults rather than generic strategies that were never built with your brain in mind.

Perhaps most importantly, it can be the beginning of a different relationship with yourself. One built on understanding rather than self-criticism, on accommodation rather than white-knuckling through, and on the recognition that the way your brain works is not a flaw to be corrected.

If you recognise yourself in this post — if you’ve spent years wondering why the things other people find easy feel so hard, and whether there might be an explanation — we’d like to talk.

Solasta Counselling offers adult autism assessments in Calgary for women seeking answers. Our psychologists bring clinical expertise and a genuinely affirming approach to every assessment.

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