ASD assessment has been brought forward 4 months

[moosemama]

I almost keeled over with shock when I opened the letter this morning.

We spoke with them in September and were told it would still be no earlier than April 2011, but then received a letter this morning saying its going to be early January!

They didn't give a reason for why its so much sooner, but reading between the lines, (specifically a paragraph in the notes that says something about length of appointment depending on how many professionals have already been involved) I think its because I pushed to get the Ed Psychs and inclusion team involved. They've now all been in to observe him and in the case of the EPs are already working with him, so I think they already have a fair amount of the information they need.

I had a feeling something might be happening, as our EP told me they had been asked to complete all the intital paperwork/questionnaires with us and to carry out the WISC IV. She also mentioned this week that she was updating the assessment centre with the work she's done with ds so far.

The EP is hoping to carry out the WISC next week and we were going to fill in the pre-assessment questionnaires with her in January, so I assume we will now have to squeeze that appointment in before christmas as well.

So, first off, do I need to be suspicious - or is this a good thing?

Secondly help! What do I need to prepare and take with us? According to the letters he is seeing a Clinical Psychologist and Specialist OT and it will take half a day, after which he can go back to school and dh and I have to go back for the results at the end of the day.

I feel very odd now. Not really sure why, I guess just because the letter came out of the blue so I wasn't mentally prepared for it?

Am off out now, but would be grateful for any advice.

Hiya Moose.I'd say this is good although I always get suspicious if things are going well too! What type of assessment are you having? Is it ados?

Hi
This happened with us, we were told late October/early November for earliest appointment, then I phoned up and said DS had been having problems at school that I hadn't realised about, and I could I know what the appt involved to start preparing him etc. They said at the time that there was no jumping of queues etc. however severe the ASD was everyone had to wait. Then a week later an appt arrived through the post. Dx is now in place and he should really only have just about had his first appt by now!

Good luck for your appointment, we are awaiting a CAMHS appointment and now that we have the OT report I am going to be ringing on Monday.

And then I will ring every week until we get an appointment and then I will ring to let them know we can attend at short notice if there is a cancellation.

I am learning .

Thanks for your replies everyone.

Fighting, all I know is that its a multi-disciplinary assessment and that, having already seen the EP and Inclusion Team he will only be seen by the Clinical Psychologist and Specialist OT on the day.

Apparently he will be in with one professional while we are with the other then vice versa.

Starlight, we have two lovely EPs on our side, they have been amazing with ds and his school, so they could well have had a positive influence. They also work out of the same offices as the assessment team, so it would make sense.

We've just got back from having his eyes tested. Apparently he has excellent eyesight - better than 20-20, but really poor convergence, which is to do with the muscle/motor control of his eyes (am wondering whether this has anything to do with his poor general muscle control and strength and possible dyspraxia).

She also felt he would benefit from an Orthoptist testing for Mears Irlen syndrome. The school's inclusion rep mentioned this as well, but its sooo expensive to get him tested. The nearest person to us charges £175.00 just for the initial test. Fortunately she told us that they will do it for free at a the vision sciences department of a relatively local university, so I will be checking that out on Monday.

So anyway, back to the assessment. What should we take with us? I have fairly comprehensive briefing/background notes that I'm currently trying to improve (cross referencing, indexing etc). What else should I take?

I was wondering if there would be any point in asking my parents to trawl through their collection of home movies for me, as we don't have a camcorder ourselves. Would they even bother with them, or are they more likely to take a snapshot of him as he is on the day for their assessment?