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Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum (MIGDAS-2)
Toddlers through adults
The Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, Second Edition, is a qualitative, sensory-based interview process used within autism assessments. It is also searched for as the MIGDAS-2 assessment and the MIGDAS autism interview.
Where the ADOS-2 codes observed behaviours against an algorithm, the MIGDAS-2 gathers a narrative description of how a person experiences the sensory and social world. The two answer different questions and are often used together.
How is the MIGDAS-2 different?
It produces description rather than a score. The process guides the clinician through structured conversations with the person, with their parents or caregivers where relevant, and with teachers, gathering language-rich accounts of sensory experience, communication style, social understanding and areas of deep interest.
The output is a written narrative organised around those themes, which then feeds into the diagnostic formulation. There is no cut-off and no algorithm.
Why does that matter for adults and for girls?
Because instruments that score observable behaviour tend to under-identify people who have spent years learning to produce the expected behaviour. Masking is effortful and often invisible in a one-hour session, and it is more common among autistic women and among adults assessed late.
A sensory-based interview asks about internal experience rather than rating external presentation. Someone who makes good eye contact because they taught themselves to, and finds it exhausting, will describe that in a MIGDAS-2 interview and will not show it on an observational measure.
Is the MIGDAS-2 used instead of the ADOS-2?
Sometimes, and sometimes alongside it. The choice depends on the person, their age, their communication profile and the referral question.
Neither instrument diagnoses on its own. Both contribute to a formulation that also draws on developmental history, questionnaires, collateral information and consideration of alternative explanations.
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This page is general information about an assessment instrument and is not clinical advice. Whether a particular assessment is appropriate depends on the individual and the question being asked.