It has been my experience with psychologists who claim to specialise in autism as well.
I have seen only 3 psychologists who specialuze in autism. All of them understood more than average but one did their practicum with another of the 3.
I have seen a lot of psychologists and clinical social workers and some psychiatrists beyond the 3 autism specialists...only maybe 2 knew anything about autism.
I did see medical doctors in other specialties who understood, though - thinking of one audiologist in particular who understood perfectly and it was reflected in his report stating I would need accomodations for severe developmental hyperacusis, and a handful of family doctors.
I have had an abnormally huge amount of interaction with healthcare, though, so again...those who don't understand are the vast majority.
But I'm a relatively late diagnosed adult - maybe here is the difference? I was 26 when diagnosed, you were diagnosed in childhood as far as I underatand from your posts. Am I right? Maybe it's a completely different pool of psychologists.
Nope, I was identified as having developmental issues/delays as a toddler when I (for one of many classic autism signs) never babbled, started to speak late and entirely with meaningless echolalia, and had very atypical language development ...I learned to read before I really learned to speak meaningfully and beyond delayed functional echolalia ( I learned to read when I was 3, it is the foundation of all my language ability...I had hyperlexia...
What to Know About Hyperlexia, a Learning Disability Characterized by Advanced Reading Skills
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S014976341630639X)
I was subject to useless and traumatizing early intervention all throughout elementary school because I so obviously had almost no social skills and couldn't talk to people, and until I was 15 my education was a mix of special ed, regular classes, and gifted programs (including one wonderful elementary school teacher who let me happily work through two grades of math workbooks by myself in less than a year while she taught grade-level math to everyone else).
So I went through life for over two decades recognized by most people as somehow developmentally disabled (some occasionally thought specific learning disability/slow-normal plus mentally ill instead) but with no specific diagnosis besides severe ADHD-C (which was also diagnosed late-ish, but not as late as Autism).
I wasn't actually diagnosed with autism until I was 24 because my father rejected the idea that anything was wrong with me and was dead set against labelling me (he favored shame and punishment and blaming me for disability impairments instead) and by the time it was just my mom raising me after they split up we were way too poor and she had too little support as a mom for her to get me assessed and I had been so traumatized by doctors and other helping professionals there was no way she could have even got me to anyone's office for assessment short of maybe handing me over to child welfare....
