To request DD be assessed for autism?

She won’t get an NHS diagnosis till she’s an adult as some areas have a 5year wait list and school have to have agree with you as they will come to school to assess her and they’ll need to fill in paperwork. If you go private make sure they use the NICE guidelines as otherwise it’s just junk and schools and universities don’t need to accept it which are more expensive around £2.5k

This is purely my personal experience.

This is quite a good paper explaining the issues with the idea of masking.

“in a preliminary study of the 25-item Camouflage Autistic Traits Questionnaire total score (CAT-Q; Hull et al., 2019), correlations with a social anxiety measure were as high or even higher than those with an autism measure, suggesting confounding by co-occurring social anxiety as further illustrated by some item content (e.g., ‘I am always aware of the impression I make on other people’).”

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32658354/

by Prof Fombonne

Autism and ADHD do not automatically result in any extra time in exams. A test specifically for slow processing would be needed. You may get allowances for rest breaks (usually about 5 minutes per hour) if it is demonstrated that you would benefit from these. The school would have to provide evidence that you need these accommodations as part of your normal way of working. There has been a tightening of the rules, rightly in my opinion, around exam concessions.

Just be aware that she may get a diagnosis of ASD but that will be it.
There will be no follow up or anything.
If she is suicidal you may get some help but it will be short and ineffective if our experience is anything to go by.

She may get more time in exams, she may not.
It might all be a little late though to get a diagnosis before mocks/exams, referral into CAMHS and a diagnosis took about 18 months for us.

I would encourage you to support her in seeking a diagnosis. I first suspected I might have autism when I first heard of the existence of the concept in my early 20s but didn't pursue or do deeper research at that point and didn't actually get a diagnosis until my 40s. Many of the complicated things that happened in the intervening decades might have come out more positively with the knowledge and understanding I subsequently gained and I wish I had sought out more information sooner. A diagnosis isn't a label, it's a signpost to help you understand what to look for when things are difficult.

This

she still needs to learn some strategies to help her navigate life around the issues she has.
Diagnosis is a double edged sword; it can sometimes cause nocebo effects where the issues become magnified. Especially if the individual is seeking the diagnosis themselves
Exactly that! Diagnosis or not, we have a responsibility to learn to adjust. Too often it seems, people seek a diagnosis to be relieved of responsibility and for others to bathe adjustment to suit them.

I've had ADHD all my life. I don't need an official diagnosis for it. It didn't exist 30, years ago. I learned to adapt all on my own. Self reflection, putting strategies in place etc... at almost 60 years, I still have to use the strategies and come up with new ones.

That's life and no diagnosis will change it.

There are a few things in your posts, op.

Firstly, the autism spectrum isn't a linear scale. It's more like a dartboard.

The assessment process now includes questionnaires designed to consider masking behaviours. It also includes retrieving evidence from parents, teachers, other professionals where relevant, which build a fuller picture of the individual than a single ADOS assessment can determine. An individual may not meet the diagnosis threshold on the ADOS due to masking, but still reach the threshold on the basis of other evidence.

What level of impairment is there in your dd's every day life? Does she have mental health difficulties? Friendship problems? Executive funciion weaknesses that make it hard for her to process information? Communication difficulties? You say she's interested in seeking diagnosis to help her with school, but what does that actually mean and look like?

Then there's the assessment waiting time. If she's already 17 and wanting an assessment to help with school, then I'm sorry to say but I think that ship has sailed. It could of course still help if she has aspirations of higher education, but even then you may need to consider paying for a private assessment.

A diagnosis would help her to understand herself and develop strategies to cope with situations she finds particularly hard. I'm just not sure of the level of impact here?

For context, my 9yo dd was diagnosed in March. She's 'high functioning' (for want of a better description because she's not 'profoundly' autistic) but she's had severe mental health problems since starting school, 3 episodes of school avoidance, and two episodes of agoraphobia due to burnout. She 'functions' for periods of time, then falls apart when the understanding and support falls away because she doesn't seem to many to be 'autistic enough'. She's also had very noticeable sensory differences which have been very apparent to us since she was a toddler, but which she hides at school.

Masking as an autistic person isn't the same thing as a neurotypical person adapting to different social situations. The fact that a neurotypical person can read the social situations and understand what is required and react appropriate pretty much subconsciously is the whole bloody point, an autistic person cant do that.
Instead we think ahead, plan, rehearse, act and are happy if we're 50% as successful as the NT person. And that's forgetting that there's tonnes of other compensations that autistic people have to manage to get through the day.

Honestly there's comments in here about NT resenting having to adapt or make concessions, yet I bet I'm not supposed to point out that as a ND person I have to continuously make concessions for NT who are incapable or unwilling to do basic fucking research or think they should comment on concepts where they understand 10% of what they're talking about. Complete failure to use logic or analysis, wouldn't happen in a ND world yet you think you're the ones making concessions!

With much kindness, there is not much in your description that is clearly pointing to autism?

she sounds normal to me. Why does everything need a label.

Because if you find that you can't seem to get better at certain things, no matter how hard you try, and other people seem to make progress in the same area, it can be helpful to know that there's a reason why, and that you need to approach it differently. In the same way that many people in my parents generation grew up not knowing they were dyslexic and grew up with the shame of feeling that they were 'stupid' or 'lazy' because that's what teachers and society around them impressed on them. Instead there would be posters on here scoffing that they wanted excuses or a label for 'being a bit bad at spelling'.

Spoken like a true reformer!