Getting a diagnosis.. advice please

[Paintedtoenail]

Please can someone help.

My DS is 12. Since the age of two I have suspected he may have mild autism traits. Very mild but as he is getting older these traits are becoming more prevalent. School never picked up on anything but as his Mother I have always suspected something albeit mild.
My husband has always accused me of labelling him. Now he sees things for himself and agrees we should be speaking to a professional.
It’s all a bit of a minefield and I just want to get him the support that he needs.

Whats the best course of action to take? Any advice will be greatly welcomed.

First step would be to bring your concerns to the GP. I will warn you though, my eldest has just been referred for an autism assessment at 11 after about 6 years of trying to get help from school/gp/etc, we were always dismissed because he masked so well, took him having a full on breakdown at school to be able to get any kind of support and even then no one would do the referral, finally got lucky with a new GP who recognised his autistic traits and he’s been referred but the waiting list is very long.

It can be worth having a chat with school as well. Sometimes they see certain behaviours in isolation and don't put it all together until they hear what home is like as well.

But we started with the GP. I had written down examples of behaviour and what our concerns were before I spoke to them which was really helpful.

Make a GP appointment.

Can you afford to go private for an assessment? Ask round for recommendations. You want somewhere that complies with NICE guidelines (don’t choose the cheapest option). If you say where you are you can probably get recommendations on here.

If you can afford private most GPs will do a referral letter.

If not they will possibly still refer to CAMHS but be warned (a) wait lists are horrific think 3 years and (b) if his symptoms are on the milder end and he masks/school aren’t on board he may get screened out by CAMHS without a full assessment.

Just be prepared that there is very little support after diagnosis anyway, it basically diagnose then discharge, theres no sort of aftercare whatsoever, Ehcp, dla etc is based on needs not diagnosis, in reality I think a diagnosis does help towards evidence if you also have evidence of needs, but without the evidence of needs you’ll get nothing with a diagnosis

Thank you . This is interesting. And also shocking.

He absolutely does need support but primary school were dismissive of this and now he is at secondary school it is more apparent.

I am going to talk to the Doctor. Make a list of his symptoms and go from there.

I went to the GP for ds at that age, and explained what I thought and what specific event had made me think that actually he needed to be assessed.

It does have to go through school though, as they have to fill out an assessment, so if they're not on side you may struggle.

For ds, I went to the GP in March 2020 asking for an ADHD assessment. Great timing! However it was for me after the head of year (who didn't really know ds anyway) had not filled out the form firstly at all because they "couldn't work out how to fill out and return a pdf form") and then filled it out at such odd with what I'd put out (eg put he was low ability in one subject when he was top set with specific interest in it) that they came to me and asked if I could find someone else to do it. So I got his drama teacher-who had him for about 15 hours a week out of school, so knew him well. I peeked at her answers and they were so close to mine that I was concerned they might decide we'd colluded! :)
Anyway he did on-line assessments and they first said he didn't have ADHD but would like to reassess for ASD. They concluded he had ASD followed shortly later for ADHD. It took about 15 months from beginning to end, but worth it.