what to expect at 1st CAMHS appointment with DS7

[tobypercy]

My DS7 has been referred to CAMHS by the school, to be assessed for possible autism or ADHD.

We finally have our first appointment this week (shouldn't complain, I gather a 5 month wait is pretty good going). I was a bit surprised it's at the local hospital - I had gathered he would be assessed at school (in class) without being told he was being assessed, which makes sense to me as his main problems are around how he relates to his peers and how he behaves in class.

The lady who called last week to offer us the appointment seemed very efficient but when I tried to ask a bit about the appointment she said there would be full info sent out by post, expected by Friday last week. There is still no sign of this paperwork, so I phoned them today and the different staff member who answered seemed confused about why I was calling, largely said "just turn up with DS on Wednesday, what's the big deal?"

I don't know whether to tell my DS he might be autistic, or just say we're going to the hospital for some non-specific reason (I'm unlikely to get away with that, he's very curious and bright). I don't have a clue what this appointment will be like, or even who it is with (doctor, psychologist-type, secretary??!).

Can anyone shed any light on what we can expect at the appointment? That might give me some pointers how to explain it to DS.

For us, it was an information gathering exercise. We were asked lots of questions about dd’s early years and we talked a lot about the current difficulties she was having. My dd was asked for her thoughts too. I don’t remember any talk about why she was there.

For us it was about an hour long and huge numbers of questions were asked led by the psychiatrist but there was also a nurse, they then went outside to discuss, returning 2 mins later to tell us what we already knew, asd, they then referred for 6 weeks of therapy,

We were there passed back and forth between camhs and community peads (first hint of asd and they couldn’t wait to get her off their list 🙄). She was eventually diagnosed by the clinical psychology team at our hospital.

hmm thanks.
This is going to be tricky!

Guess I just have to tell him that we're going to talk about the problems he's been having at school. Of course he thinks they are all one-offs and won't understand why :-/

Early appointments tend to be mainly information gathering in order to decide what next

Personally I have always been upfront with ds about what is going on. I think they need to understand (within ability) in order to be able to accept and begin to understand themselves

I also wouldn’t expect any diagnosis from the first appointment