"autism specialist"....which field?

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Hey all,
For someone who wants to study to be an autism specialist, what field/sub-field do you suppose this would go under or fit best within? I know it would be psychology, but there are different branches: behavioral, clinical, neurocognitive, social psychology, etc. I looked into degrees specific to this title and came up with a small handful of master's degrees, but they are all focused on autistic children and special education, which is not what I'm after. I want something specifically geared toward adults and therefore an MA in special ed. would not help much. I'm hoping to find a doctorate program that will allow me to work with autistic adults, in the form of therapy/counseling, consulting, and research. Any ideas?

For a PhD, probably clinical. I'm taking a similar track (i.e. hoping to go into a clinical PhD track, but going thru the master's first), I'm getting my master's in behavior analysis and therapy... Maybe that's along the lines of what you're looking for?

If you're in Chicago, there are a couple programs like that not that far from there--one at Southern Illinois (which is where I'm going), and another at University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (I think in the UWM program your degree would technically be in experimental psychology, but I can't recall for sure)

Why not ask a psychologist or clinician who currently works with autism. There is sure to be a psychology clinic in your area that has at least one autism specialist. Whether or not they work with adults, they would most likely have some concept of which fields to consider.

Probably not much good for the therapy/counselling; but the most interesting autism-related field IMO is neurology and neurogenetics.

Clinical psychology. "Autism" is a clinical entity.

There's not really much you can do for adults with such, really, except diagnosing and offering to listen to what they say and doing your best to give logical answers and reasoning, plus setting and reinforcing some goals if they want and are comfortable with such.

I 'm not interested in diagnosing. If anything, I want to do some sort of research that helps alter/progress the current diagnostic methods. I want to offer support in the way o.f therapy/counseling and things like life issues, executive dysfunction and also doing research (in a psycho-social theoretical context) and writing/publishing.