More camhs confusion!!

[Ineedtinsel]

We took Dd3 for her "assessment" at camhs on Monday, to find that they only wanted to do a history and discuss her issues with us.

It was all very confusing, the ladies we saw were very nice but their job seemed to be to decide whether or not Dd3's issues were severe enough for her to be seen by someone from Tier 2 who would begin the assessment procedure.

Fgs how long are we going to be shunted around from one person to the next.

They said after about an hour of questioning that they could see why we were there and would be referring Dd3 on to Tier 2.

They asked us why what we would like the outcome to be for Dd3 and I said I think that in order to access any support at school she needs a DX.

They also said [most confusing] that we should treat Dd3 as if she has an ASD and put into place or continue to use strategies which support children who have an ASD.

I said But what if we do all that and are then told that she doesn't have an ASD. So one of the ladies said " Well it can't do any harm can it"
Well how the hell do I know, I am banging my head against a wall trying to get some support and recognition for a child who may or may not have an ASD and all they can say is treat it as if it is because it can't do any harm.

Strike a light is it me???

We were told to use stratagies that work for ASD for ds2 before he was diagnosed.

I had the same question mark over it as your having... It seemed a bit odd.. Trying to 'fix' something when your not sure what is going on... Anyway..

We did put things in place and things did improve.. We also happen to broadly use the same stratagies for all our dc's .. Even though only ds2 has asd... Have to say.. They do seem to work well for grumpy lazy smelly teen ds1 and for easy going dd as well as ds2.
( positive reenforcement, routine, planning, red and yellow cards and huge usage of the justice system etc .. Seems fine.. We do have to make sure that this is balanced with time and space to be able to be daft etc as well..
But basically in this house.. If your a pain in the butt .. Then you will be expected to reason your actions and see where a better choice could be made.. And then to restore or repair the situation.
As ds1 put it to a professional working with ds2 and who was seeing how things work in our house..
" we get a lot of freedom and support in what we want to do... If I want to go to a festival.. Or There is a party I want to go to.. I'm allowed... However.. I know if I mess up.. Mum will make me talk about it and I'm expected to fix the problem... So doing stupid stuff isn't worth it!"

so I think in general terms.. It can work.
If you try strategies and they aren't working.. Don't flog a dead horse.. Find something that does.

You wouldn't be mad enough to ask if your dc might have an ASD if there weren't some suggestive features. And you wouldn't be putting yourself through all this stress with appointments if things weren't difficult currently.

So (don't flame me!) I think the CAMHS lady was right to say that trying the strategies is worth a go. As TACC says, they'll probably help whether or the assessment says 'yes ASD'; 'yes, something else'; 'no, not quite any diagnosis, just a major challenge'.

We had a similar process with our assessment for DS at CAMHS.
The 1st appointment was mainly for us to discuss our concerns, the paed who was there was also asking some questions, she then interacted with DS for a little while.
She told us there and then DS would go on the waiting list for the full ASD assessment and that he clearly has autism.
I was tbh to finally have a professional who didn't skirt around it and came out with it.
The 2nd app. was when they did the ADI with us, the ADOS and a cognitive test with DS. We got the official dx on the same day.

Like you we were told to use visual aids, PECS, sandtimers,... and we were told that joining a support group from the NAS would be good too.

Good luck with the assessment.

Thanx everyone sorry I haven't been around since I posted this. I had to brave the Motorway and the shops today [its a long story], anyway we survived and Dd3 was brilliant.

I agree that things might get easier for us if we introduce some more strategies with Dd3, we have ditched time out and now use the red and yellow cards. We use lots of counting down and she uses the kitchen timer. We are more careful about our use of language and try to make sure we check that she has understood, So we are moving in the right direction.

I need some ideas for improving sibling relationships as they are really awful, even Dd1 who doesn't live with us was having a dig yesterday.

It is sometimes exhausting and it gets wearing to keep fighting the same battles day in day out.

But you all know that because if you didn't you wouldn't be here..

Just a quick update, we had a letter from CAMHS this mornig, super quick or what.

The report stated our concerns very clearly and made some really usfull observations about Dd3 for example that she sat on her Dads knee throughout the appointment with her back to them!!

They have refered us to the next tier, so we wait again for the next appointment.

I sympathise with your OP. I think sometimes the professionals forget what it is like to be on the other end.

I mean (an analogy, I know ASD isn't the same as cancer) you can hardly be told that you may as well start treatement for cancer pending a dx of cancer can you?

And when you are new to ASD, you have no idea how 'potent' the 'treatments' for ASD might be, or what the side effects are? You're hardly going to want to start them without a dx.

But actually, the techniques are really nothing more that absolutely excellent consistent parenting with an element of creativity and problem solving, and absolutely, even on Christmas day, no let up EVER. That's the hard bit I think. I use the same strategies for both my children, but with ds I can never EVER let him get away with anything, I have to see the whole thing through.

However with dd I can say 'get down off that wall' and she can ignore me, and I can think 'well I should go and get her down, but I'm enjoying my chat and beer so I'll tackly her disobedience another time'.

You just can't do that with an child with ASD. That is one of the reasons why it is so exhausting I think.

Thankyou starlight wonder... That was a great post, very insigtful. It is ok for them to suggest that we use strategies which work with children with ASD but they haven't told us where to go to learn the strategies, I get most of my advice from you lovely people on MN.

It is exactly that about Dd3 we can't ever let up. We have yet to work out how doing something once becomes a routine set in stone.

I get frustrated when people [including my family] assume that it is a parenting issue which is causing Dd3's quirky behaviour.

It is exhausting, I did say to the lady at CAMHs that we have done all this once with Dd1[22] and that we are moving quickly towards the teen years which were really hard for us with DD1. Which is why we really need to get some things into place now with Dd3.