Purpose With a growing focus on autism in adulthood, reexamining how and from whom information is collected is critical to ensure autistic adults receive adequate and appropriate care across the lifespan. Accessibility to autism assessments, services for co-occurring mental health conditions, and identifying service needs in adulthood is challenging. Mental health outcomes for autistic adults remain relatively poor compared to nonautistic peers. Increased incorporation of autistic self-report will ensure researchers and clinicians capture the profiles, concerns and needs of autistic individuals from their perspective. However, reliance on a single reporter, regardless of diagnosis or condition, comes with limitations. Using multi-informant approaches provides additional information through examining convergence and discrepancy between informants. Design/methodology/approach This viewpoint paper aims to consider the use of multi-informant approaches, as they pertain to autistic adults through a neurodiversity-affirming framework from the perspective of researchers, clinicians, family members of autistic adults, and autistic self-advocates. Drawing on discrepancy research, adult diagnostic guidelines and clinical expertise, the authors outline considerations for informant selection, contextual interpretation, and ethical management of discrepant reports. Findings The authors highlight adult-specific challenges in applying multi-informant models, including autonomy, masking, relational dynamics, recall limitations, and post-diagnostic disagreement and provide recommendations for selecting informants, interpreting divergence, and communicating assessment decisions transparently. Originality/value Whereas existing guidelines recommend collateral information in adult autism assessment, limited guidance exists on how to systematically interpret discrepancies or manage informant-related complexities in adulthood. This paper extends current guidance by offering perspectives and recommendations for ethically and contextually integrating multi-informant data when working with autistic adults.
Ward et al. (Mon,) studied this question.