AIBU to ask for my son's ASD diagnosis to be reassessed?

[sleepertraintomorrow26]

My son is 7 and was diagnosed with ASD almost two years ago. His assessment consisted of an appointment at home, questionnaires completed by both school and home, and a SALT (speech and language therapist) visit to observe him at school.

After that, I was asked to attend an appointment with the doctor without my son, which I did. During that appointment, he was formally diagnosed with ASD.

My older son was diagnosed at the age of 3, but his assessment was much more thorough. He had lots of different assessments and testing, was observed in several different settings, and also had a medical examination. To be fair, my older son is quite severely autistic and is still non-verbal at 11, so I appreciate that his needs were very different.

However, I have been wondering whether it would be possible to have my youngest son reassessed. His school were also quite surprised by his diagnosis, which has made me question whether the original assessment was thorough enough.

Has anyone else been in a similar situation or had their child reassessed after an ASD diagnosis? If so, how did you go about it?

I wrote the post out on chatgpt and asked it to fix grammar etc as im dyslexic.

Yanbu, I have a friend who's son was diagnosed after she had two zoom meetings, one didn't include her child. He's not severely autistic and I genuinely have no clue how they diagnosed him without ever even meeting him. I don't know how it's allowed.

So did you think your child was ASD or was it just the school?

Close family had endless trouble with their DSs first primary. The school basically thought he was ASD, but no one else did. After switching primary schools everything was fine.

That’s interesting, but it also suggests your child had the first assessment because it was quite clear he is autistic?

No one thought anything tbh. His nursery had concerns and they suggested that due to his family history I make him a gp appointment. Gp then referred him to community child heath.

I wouldn't say he is obviously autistic. Definitely not to the point he gets a less detailed assessment.

Children are often reassessed usually privately. Afaik in America they retest children with ADHD as a lot of children change their behaviour as they get older.
Your DS is probably milder on the spectrum but still there, don’t jump to soon as sometimes they fall behind again or anxiety comes in badly when friendships get sticky at about 8.

I think you’re comparing your children. One sounds very high needs and the other low needs/ doesn’t require any support as you say. But they don’t give diagnosis out for nothing so I’m not sure why you’re challenging it. You’ve got parents fighting for what you have received, if he doesn’t need extra accommodations then fair enough but at least the opportunities are there for when and if needed. Autism is a huge spectrum and if you’re planning on wasting nhs time getting him reassessed then I think you’re out of order, go private if unhappy.

But are you only saying that because you’re comparing him to your older son who has more obvious needs?

He got it because they had enough information and evidence to diagnose him that way, so they clearly thought it was obvious.

At the time of his assessment I would agree i was. Not anymore.

I think it's worth pointing out again that it's not only me that has concerns regarding his assessment.

In which case it’s probably worth pointing out that the people who have concerns about his diagnosis are not specialists who diagnose autism. The professionals involved in your child’s diagnosis are specialists in that field and they decided they had enough information to go down the first route. They didn’t do that because there were doubts, if there were any doubts they would have gone the other path.

At the time my youngest was diagnosed ASD we thought my oldest was NT, because to us they were "normal". Excuse the expression, basically we didn't see any additional needs at that point.
Says more about us than them, diagnosed just over a year later ...

Better to get it done now than when your DC decides they want to join the military, or emigrate to Australia. Some people are utterly stunned to discover that some diagnoses prevent them from doing this sort of thing.

No but they have spent longer then a 40 min appointment in a clinical setting with him.

Honestly, I wouldn't bother. If ignored, his disgnosis will disappear in time. School will forget about it, gp won't think about it and he need not tell any future employer. Alternatively, if he does need support as he grows up, if its there you can resurrect it.