Published on 12, July, 2020
"It may seem surprising that people who received a diagnosis much later in life had more severe features, as we might expect people with severe features to be more likely to seek a diagnosis earlier in life": https://www.spectrumnews.org/news/autism-features-may-be-more-severe-in-old-age/
So basically the study is saying they have no idea how autism effects people as they move into older age, but, they’re going to look into it, which makes sense.
It’s interesting that they used the word ‘severe’, several times in relation to autistic traits, because that’s how I describe my autistic traits. Maybe, as the article suggested, the more self aware we are, the more aware we are of the difficulties we have and maybe in that sense, they appear more severe? Who knows, but I’m glad they’re looking into it as it will be a step in the right direction, to be better informed in how to better care for older adults in care homes and at home receiving home care services. This is where I have seen difficulties arising for older people with autism/undiagnosed autism so it’s great that there is talk of looking into this now.
Yeah, I think there's still a lot not really known. I hope that they do more research into older adults with autism. It seems most of the people doing autism research is focusing on children, but those children become adults and move to old age, and there's not much research in that area. It's nice to hear that there are people who are trying to understand how autism manifests in old age. Hopefully, there will be more support services in the future.