Daughter's resistance to help

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I think you need to consider how she might be feeling right now if you really want to help her. Put yourself in her shoes. A diagnosis might be a relief for you, but I bet it's also really scary for her.

When my parents took me to be assessed when I was 12 years old, I felt betrayed. They didn't talk much to me about it beforehand. So to me it felt like some big secret they were keeping from me, that they didn't think I had enough agency over my own life to even be part of the conversation. At that time it seemed to me like they were just looking for some name to call me, a negative label they could stick on my head to make them feel better about how difficult they found me to be. My diagnosis wasn't what I wanted and I had no control over it. I felt ashamed when I didn't "pass" those tests like I tried to. I was sure that I was a failure somehow.

I don't know your family, but I know what I would have most wanted at that point in my life was for someone to come into my bubble, for people to stop trying to sand down my corners and to give my square peg a square hole to fit into once in a while. I wanted someone to try telling me something positive for a change instead of what I wasn't doing right. It seems like a lot of parents want to "fix" their kids on the spectrum, to make them like everyone else. You have to be really careful to consider the kind of toll this process takes on a kid, especially if done against their will.

Around my 19th birthday my dad read the book "Animals in Translation" and it really changed the way he thought about neurodiversity. I could tell that suddenly instead of my parents focusing on what I wasn't doing right, they started telling me things they could see I was doing better than most people. It just so happens that one of those things is drawing and identifying plants and animals. It was upon their encouragement that I started volunteering in an entomology lab at the university I was attending. Fast forward a couple of decades and I am now an entomologist working as a full time research scientist at an R1 university. I got my PhD in 2017. I get flown to conferences around the world to present my work. I live independently. I bought my first new car this year. I'm on schedule to pay off the last of my student debt in about 4 months.

... but like your daughter I also got let go from my first part-time job in high school (technically my first two part-time jobs)

Just wanted to say thanks to all of you for commenting and giving such great advice. You have given me a lot to think about

Have you spoken to your daughter about how she feels about the diagnosis? Or about why she refuses help from anyone? Understanding why a behaviour is occurring can go a long way towards knowing how to fix it.

Regarding the job, personally I would put that off until after she graduates. High school is hard enough without adding the extra responsibility of work on top of it. The biggest thing with autism is that generally speaking, we take longer to do the things our peers do, and it’s harder for us to learn them. That’s what is meant by “developmental delay”.

With school, moving away from home is a big step. If you’re worried about her not being able to look after herself, you can spend the summer teaching her the skills she’s missing (the next two summers actually, since she’s still only a junior) and make her adequate mastery of these skills a prerequisite to her attending school. If she can’t do it, you wait a semester, keep teaching, and try again.

I got my first job at eighteen, and was fired nine months later. I didn’t get my driver’s license until I was 21. I went to university, but didn’t leave my parents’ house until I was 24. I’m 26 now and only got my own independent apartment two weeks ago. Some things take us longer to do, but with the right supports, there’s nothing to say that we can’t ever get there.

It sounds like she is lucky to have a caring parent like you in her life.

Seriously though, since your daughter likes animal husbandry, the two of you should check out some of Temple Grandin's work.

Here is her Curriculum Vitae that has a list of her books on it:
https://www.grandin.com/professional.resume.html

It is so cool that you are a renown entomologist. That sounds like an amazing profession.

Well thanks, but I'm not renown, not yet anyway. Heck, I don't even have tenure yet. -but it is getting really fun to just go after the research that excites me right now. The nice thing about insects is that they are nearly anywhere, so no matter where I find myself I can also find new research questions.