A poll about dx of ASD...

[pucca]

After to speaking to a mum of a boy with ASD yesterday I found myself rather wound up.

Basically she said that my ds can't have ASD as they diagnosed her son within 10 mins of 1st appointment. We are 18mth down the road, and have been referred to CAHMs as my ds is very complex (Although I have had a verbal dx of ASD and ADHD)...

Sooooooo

If your dc has been offically dx with ASD how quickly was this confirmed?

Thanks

Wow! I had to go out for a bit but have come back to all these replies

Thanks everyone, I knew she was talking rubbish tbh, the scary thing is..is that she is training to be a Teaching Assistant.

You have all just confirmed what I initially thought.

Gladio...Can't comment on the brightness but no I wouldn't say her ds is severe really, but he is 8 and I suppose a lot of coping techniques could have been put in place.

Oh pfft, that's rollox. Our ASD diagnosis is a bit of a funny one (turned up on our notes around age 4 to get a dietician referral but she doesn't really "have" ASD iyswim) but a paed friend of mine has actually done that diagnosing job and the length of time has nothing whatsoever to do with severity. ASD has symptoms which overlap with a bunch of other conditions, and depending on which ones the child decides they are going to have it can take no time at all to decide it's ASD or ages to decide it's ASD rather than half a dozen other things and maybe bits of all of them. Plus the timetable varies hugely by the preference of the senior paed involved - which is as much about them being uncomfortable with "springing" a diagnosis on parents as any doubt as to what the eventual diagnosis will be, and that itself will depend on the chemistry between the paed(s) and the parents on the day.

I once went to a doctor with a problem with a nerve in my foot (bear with me, it does get relevant in the end...) and he diagnosed it straight away, and congratulated me. He said that in his experience the way to get the best possible treatment was to always carefully present with the symptoms listed in the textbook, and I had done an excellent job in this case.

DS has been in the system with SALT since aged 2. But it wasn't until just before his 3rd b/day when MS nursery stated raising their concerns that referal to paed was deemed necessary. We got to see paed when DS was 3.5 and finally got all the asd assessments done and was given dx when DS was 4.7 y old.

So that's 2.7 y in the system before formal dx. Although the actual asd assessment path took 14 months.

FORMAL DX was about 2 years , with dd4 .
Had verbal dx after we`d met the peadi a few times , but only for the gdd. The hypermobility and asd came later at the offical asd assesment.

bit of a standard is the two year wait imo !.

It took almost 5 years from first suspecting DS had autism to being diagnosed with it. However 4 years of that was waiting for Camhs - well being turned down for too young/wrong team/ lost in the reorganisation/only seeing most urgent cases/waiting. Once ds was seen by Camhs (a team of professionals reviewing paperwork collected over years, cars, including documentation from an mld/asd school who had initially refused ds a place for being too autistic) they wrote to his paed and recommended he be dx'ed with autism. They said no further specific tests were needed as it was clear cut !!! ( this dispite the fact that ds behaved uncharacteristically calmly on the day).
So immediate once we saw the right team - !!
I suppose 10 minutes might be long enough if the paed had spent hours reviewing reports first. 10 minute might be long enough to suspect ASD - surely not to Dx.

My DS wasn't diagnosed with Aspergers until he was 12. He had been seen twice a year by a Community Paed for about three years prior to that. When he went to Secondary School they raised it with the Ed Psych and he had further assessments which resulted in a diagnosis 6 months later (joint between Comm Paed and Ed Psych)
A snap decision would have been totally wrong and I would not trust a diagnosis which did not involve a proper assessment, which takes time.

Ditto happycamper, it's just not scientific is it? Bit like a midwife looking into your eyes and telling you how dilated you are.

4 years.

Perhaps you should tell this mum, that your ds is far more complex than her ds

from ringing the HV (about 2y check) to dx 2years (on 4th bday). Sister's son, first meeting at 11months and that was 21 years ago.

Spoke to HV a month before DS turned 2 - then saw a Paed on his second birthday. She said she thought it was ASD - then he had a portage and SALT report done before he got a DX at the next Paed appointment - so 3 months.

We know how lucky we are to get a DX so quickly.

Ds attends a sn schjool where most of the children are on the spectrum. All the children are so different!! The children who started in the nursery asd unit (presumably getting early dx) tend to be the quieter ( perhaps withdrawn when younger) whilst the later arrivals such as ds tend to be more hyperative and busy. I wonder if it is easier to diagnose children whose ASD makes them detached and quiet and avoidant ( at an age when children are usually interactive and busy), whilst the sensory seeking whirlwind children (like ds) are a bit more of a puzzle because of crossover with other developmental disorders - their busyness may appear interactive!.

Firstly, she can STFU until she gets her medical degree!

But, DS1 was referred to Paed in December, had his first appointment in February and we got the final diagnosis in June after a lot of last minute tests and in a formal meeting with people form various disciplines, including CAMHS, since ADHD was also suspected, which complicated matters. DS2 was January, March, and then September, over the phone, since he was far more clear cut and CAMHS weren't involved and it was a case of the Paed knowing that I knew before the first referral was even made (having seen DS2 with DS1 and everything). In DS2's case, the diganostic period was more about information gathering from various parties to ascertain the actual extent of his problems.

18 mths for us too.

I agree you might be able to make a verbal dx at the first meeting, but imo the doctors would have to got through the whole dx process because there are so many overlaps with so many conditions.

Turns out that my DS has more problems with dyspraxia than he ever does with ASD which for him is very mild.

They couldn't have known that on first meeting certainly not in 10 minutes - they just said vague things like they agreed with me that there was cause for concern.

It probably is easier with older children - there is less waiting around to see if they grow out of things but even so 10 mins? If it is true then somebody isn't doing their job properly either by not making a proper assessment or if they did and she just wasn't aware of it, for not helping the woman understand the process.

Oh, and just to add that DS1 was 3 and DS2 was 2 on diagnosis. DS1's initial diagnosis was "autism with associated hyperactivity and attentional deficits" and on a recent letter from CAMHS, who confirmed his ADHD, this summer, at 6.5, "ADHD with co-morbid ASD"

magso "I wonder if it is easier to diagnose children whose ASD makes them detached and quiet and avoidant ( at an age when children are usually interactive and busy), whilst the sensory seeking whirlwind children (like ds) are a bit more of a puzzle because of crossover with other developmental disorders - their busyness may appear interactive!."

Yep - this was definitely the case with my two!

as a professional i know a dx can take months...and months...and months and.. (well you get the hint)

i work with people in there teens and adulthood who are still not diagnosed

I think sometimes you can guess/know that a child has ASD within minutes of meeting them but I wouldn't feel comfortable with an actual dx being made that quickly.

Ds1's SALT told me (years later and at his final appointment with her)that she'd guessed he had ASD when she first met him. The Paed told us at the end of the first appointment that ds1 probably had ASD but that he would need to be fully assessed before a dx could be made.

Ds2 was one of the sensory seeking whirlwinds that Magso describes. :o He got a provisional dx fairly quickly at 2yrs old but it wasn't made official until a year later. Even now (5yrs later) the Paed is still considering other dx'es, eg PDD-NOS as ds2 just doesn't quite seem to fit into a specific dx.

ds was originally PDD-NOS, but said he would change to HFA/asperger with time!

DS was for 2.5 years in our mind, "idiosyncratic, quirky, strong-willed, Gina Ford's Worst Nightmare, independent and a potential engineer like his grandfathers and great-grandfathers on both sides"

HV came to visit and thought his eye-contact and lack of pointing / showing was fine. Pre-school manager recommended going to a drop-in SALT who referred to the child development centre. This was in early December 2009 after he had been attending for three weeks.

Once I knew what the concern was (although nobody told me explicitly) I started researching and knew by Christmas.

He was given his dx on the first (and only so far ) Paed appointment the following February.

It took about 2 years in the system for ds1, ds3 about the same although it was only 'solved' by using teh 3di test as he presents atypically. At least he did: the dx is proving more and more classic as days pass.

There is somewhat obvious autism out there but equally tehre are many kids who clearly fit diagnostic criteria without looking like e textbook case. So when tehy say social difficultles a child may be very shut away.... ds3 was too full on: both ASD.
DS1 has apparently advanced speech skills- ha! He doesn;t seem to understand that much in real terms. But you can;t see that until you know him.

Oh also I wouldn;t want a dx, even verbal made without sight of SLT, OT PT and Psycj reports, plus a developmental history, possibly play assessment and ADOS etc.

That is gold standard diagnostic procedure, not a dx at first assessment! I can't see how you could differentittae between ASD and chronically shy or even attachment disorder in one meeting tbh, certainly at the HFA level anyway.

Peachy are you saying that the Paed my DS saw was wrong because she did it at first assessment? She had a SALT report I suppose.

I know you are very learned in this area so I don't want to offend.

She also had a detailed document from me which I had worked on for months previously outlining his difficulties in each of the three impairment areas plus the SPD, the sleeplessness, food phobias, mobility problems and everything else.

DS demonstrated all the signs quite clearly during the observation and in the end she asked me what I thought. All I could say was, "I think he has many autistic traits".

There was a check-list of about 14 statements and he ticked all but two.

DS1 - from first concern to DX, 3 years, but only 4 months from first visit to community paed.