How to get a private assessment for ASD?

[Illstartexercisingtomorrow]

Hi - I have wondered for a long time if my dd (10) may be on the spectrum. Apologies if I am using the wrong terminology - but if she is it’s ‘mild’? Or not super obvious. Which is why I have wavered for so long. I don’t want her to feel I am labelling her, or that I think there is something ’wrong’ with her. But I read on this forum so many times about women getting diagnosed so late in life and I don’t want to do my dd a disservice.

So how do I go about getting a private assessment? Nhs lists are too long, and I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t get a referral anyway as no one looking at dd would suspect it.

Also how do I navigate this - if she does get an assessment and it turns out it’s not ASD, how do I manage how she feels about me taking her to get ‘checked’. How can she feel anything other than her mum thinks something is off about her. Hardly good for self esteem. This is what has stopped me going ahead so far. Oh and for the record it doesn’t matter to me what she is or isn’t and I’m not concerned about labels, I just want to be able to support her properly.

Any advice gratefully received, thank you.

Bumping for you because I have the same question! X

I don’t want her to feel I am labelling her, or that I think there is something ’wrong’ with her.

I would think very long and hard about the language you're using regarding ASD. There's no such thing as labelling. A diagnosis may stop her from doing certain careers or emigrating to certain countries but in the main it's a positive things which can help your DD understand how she thinks about things differently and hopefully use some strategies to help her in a world set up for NT people.

So how do I go about getting a private assessment

Have a look at Caudwell Children but you'll have to do it before she's 11 as that's the upper age they take.

Also how do I navigate this - if she does get an assessment and it turns out it’s not ASD, how do I manage how she feels about me taking her to get ‘checked

It's hard to know without knowing what it is that makes you think she has ASD.

Having a DD myself that went into High School without an assessment but me thinking that she may have ASD, I really would urge you to talk to her about the possibility and seek assessment. Once High School and Puberty combine your now coping DD might start to suffer burn out. We had school refusal on and off for almost the whole of Y11.