Autism assessment and diagnosis in France, Belgium and The Netherlands v the UK

[Citrusnotes77]

Forgive me if this is a very stupid question but we are at the very start of the journey. Can anyone tell me please if the criteria or threshold for an ASD diagnosis differs between these countries? Are assessment practices drastically different to those in UK? Are any of these countries outstandingly better at diagnosis than the other? If diagnosed, is a diagnosis valid in one of these countries valid in UK and vice versa?

We strongly suspect that one of my late teen daughters may have ASD and we have a degree of flexibility as to where we go for assessment, hence all of these questions.

Thanks for any advice or info.

Can anyone help please?

Can't help with any of those countries, but we are in Germany and the whole process seemed pretty similar to the uk. The only difference was that it was slower to get an initial referral but then the appointments and eventual diagnosis happened pretty quickly.

Not sure whether those countries use the DSM or ICD but they have the same diagnostic criteria as far as I'm aware. The only difference I can think of is that you might have subtype diagnosis eg. Asperger/ High or Low Function etc. whereas in the UK I think it is just one diagnosis of Autism.

My gut feeling based on general attitudes to MH would be to go for NL as first choice, and to not even bother with FR, but that's probably based on stereotypes and prejudice so 🤷🏻‍♀️😬

I don’t know about the others but we’ve just been through an autism diagnosis in the UK (privately) and it was extremely thorough. The key things were an ADOS (or possibly called ADOS -2) test the child sits and ADI/R for the parents which was made up of over 90 questions. So maybe look for the description of how they diagnose in the other countries? I remember googling ADOS at the beginning of our ‘journey’ and found they used it in other English speaking countries like Australia.

France have one of the lowest diagnosed rates of autism. I’d avoid assessment there if you have a choice.

I don't k so anything about the countries but came on to say that I was recently diagnosed (privately UK) and went to a lot of trouble to find a clinician who specialises in diagnosing girls and women.

I doubt very few could compare countries - my D’s process was really slow starting ( then lockdown) it was through camhs .

the actual assessment itself went smoothly and I felt they noticed the small things how he looks through people etc

Thank you very much for these replies.

I think we’ll be striking France off the list which isn’t a huge surprise but good to have it confirmed. and in that basis, probably Belgium too?

Need to decide whether to go back to UK or go with The Netherlands.

Dizzydizzydizzy do you mind me asking which area of the country you are in very roughly please?

In the Netherlands only a psychiatrist or a GZ psychologist can make the diagnosis. That is why the waiting times are so long.

It's fairly similar but we in the U.K. have higher rates of diagnosis. France seems more prejudiced from what my French friends say

It's only due to the work of Bernadette Chirac that children with autism are more widely accepted in France. Not so long ago, they were using straight jackets and incarceration in psychiatric hospitals.
We tried to get dd diagnosed - PDA - and it was a day at a special centre near the hospital in Limoges.

If you’re going private then Lorna Wing in Bromley was exceptional ime. Very quick too.

NHS diagnosis is slow to non-existent, also ime.

In NL we waited about 6 months for diagnosis for our 3yo. We did push a fair bit and experienced different organisations saying it was the responsibility of others etc - but think some of it was driven by a reluctance to diagnose so young. Had the sense it was much much quicker than would have been in UK.

If you have any NL specific questions feel free to DM, although my DC is a different age of course

Hello, I’ve just noticed some new replies on here and wanted to say thank you for them!

If you're an English-speaking family you can self-refer to CHS in Brussels. There's a long waiting list, it takes a few months for an appointment.

I think a FR speaker could go to St Luc, I know they do other SEN assessments there.