A split in the spectrum? The ongoing battle to define autism

She thinks the rise in autism diagnoses is driven by a “late-diagnosed group, mainly females”.

The NHS says it can be difficult to recognise autism in women, but Dame Uta says: “I am sceptical of late diagnosis. That’s where I think the diagnostic process has become very superficial.”

She believes many of this group actually have other conditions including anxiety, depression or OCD.

She questions: “Are they best served by this label autism? I would like them to get better service than they’re getting.”

She also thinks researchers might need to create “a label that doesn’t exist yet” for some people who’ve been told they’re autistic.

She points to research from the University of Cambridge which found that people diagnosed with autism in early childhood often have a different genetic profile to people diagnosed when they are older. Researchers found that people diagnosed when they are older (from late childhood onwards) show an underlying genetic profile that has more in common with ADHD and depression than it does with early diagnosed autism.

But the lead researcher, Dr Varun Warrier, says this shows “autism broadening out genetically” rather than misdiagnosis.

Dame Uta thinks a small number don’t have any mental health conditions at all – but are “identity seekers” who have been influenced by bad information on social media.

She hasn’t got a number for how many people she thinks have been misdiagnosed, but believes researchers could figure it out.

She knows this will upset and possibly scare people. She stresses: “If someone has been misdiagnosed, I don’t want them to suffer for it.

“It would be a terrible thing to take away a diagnosis retrospectively. It’s the future I’m concerned with, making diagnostic process more precise – targeting very different individual needs rather than a label.”