Major rant

[jenk1]

this is a long one so excuse me.....

Just got back from CAMHS with ds.
Psychiatrist has changed his mind about ds being AS because he spent half an hour with him and asked him would he substitute pizza for sausage and chips on a monday and ds said yes.
Psych-"Asperger people dont do this they would say no "

i said yes but s and chips is on his list of acceptable foods so that is ok psych "no an asperger person wouldnt do this"

And- in my opinion you DO NOT HAVE AS...

He spent 20mins telling me that i may have ASD or AS traits but that im not AS- and why is a diagnosis so important anyway?

I told him that its VERY IMPORTANT TO ME as i can now get help that i need-"what sort of help do you need, you do very well i mean youre married youve coped so well so far"

At this point i got very annoyed and proceeded to tell him about my childhood-how i knew i wasnt like everyone else my obsessions etc, yes but "normal" people can have obsessions, you are not AS but probably ASD, he had the copy of my psychiatrists letter in front of him and when i asked him to read the part that says"in my opinion it is very likely that Jen has an Asperger type syndrome" he says yes but it doesnt mean that you have, i argued with him but he would not have it.

He then said that DS seemed like a "NORMAL BOY" WHAt

I thought mental health professionals didnt use the term normal anymore.

He then said he was no expert in the field of Autism.

DH very annoyed and wants to complain and ask for another doctor to see DS.

Oh and the psychometric tests dont mean anything they just prove that DS is clever and DS needs the ADOS test and that will prove if he is AS/ASD.

You don't have to go back to CAMHS but since diagnosis is important for you and your ds, I agree with others that you should try to see a developmental paediatrician (preferably with multi-disciplinary team) who specialises in ASDs. They would be able to administer the ADOS and ADI/DISCO and also discuss your own diagnosis as well. It is perfectly acceptable to diagnose adults although sometimes more tricky because diagnoses are usually made mainly on the development of early behaviour patterns and therefore made by parental report. There needs to be a different process for diagnosing adults and more weight would be given instruments like the ADOS.
To get a referral to a specialist team you probably need to be referred by your child's paediatrician rather than GP but you may have a specialist paed in your area.

Thanks dobbin, thats really helped me to understand how things work in dx,ing ASD.

I have sent a very long email to the clinical psychologist who dx,d DS telling her everything that CAMHS have said and hopefully she will be able to re-refer DS to the paediatrician.

the letter sounds like a good start jenk. Ds1's dx actually came in a letter after a case conference, I was told verbally ASD by paed and psych, but the letter was the official starting point. Of course I now have hundreds of letters with it on

How long did it take for him to be officially dx,d Jimjams?

depends what you mean by how long. I raised concerns before he was 2, he wasn't dxed until gone 3 (in fact we were told he definitely wasn't autistic at 2 and a bit). However because by the time we moved down here he was just short of 3, and we;d had no input he was then fast tracked so he had a mulidisciplinary assessment over 6 weeks, and was dxed officially at the end of that (although we were told half way through that the dx was likely to be asd).

Umm it seems to vary by county i think.

We were told back in April this year that DS was in clinical psychology,s opinion ASD, but that he needed to go through the assessment procedure, we have been waiting all this time for DS to see a member of the multidisciplinary team- we thought it would be a doctor or a psychiatrist specialising in ASD/AS instead we got the duff one that has only just started at the hospital 3 weeks ago, when i phoned clinical psychology last week to tell her that psychiatrist agreed that Ds was ASD (before he flippin changed his mind that is) she said "yes i had no doubt that he would agree with what we say and now DS should be able to access help, but that is all up in the air now as he has changed his mind, weve only been waiting 8 months to see someone else--GRRR it makes me angry

It sounds so incredibly frustrating! I moan about ds2's Paed and his reluctance to give a firm dx (while asking me if I'd be interested in an Earlybird course!) but at least ds2 is still getting the help he needs.

Hopefully you will get to see someone who actually knows what they're talking about. Good luck.

Got some good news today, DS Consultant Psychologist phoned me to say she is really upset by what CAMHS have said and done.

We dont have to see that Psychoatrist again and she is arranging for a specialist in ASD to see DS. Feel really happ about that

She said "DS seems like any other NT child until you spend a lot of time with him and thats when you see the wacky part of his thinking!!!"

Thats DS off to a tee!!!

Not just a 20 minute session which the psychiatrist spent with him.

Wooooooooohooooooo!

I'm glad you've finally seen someone who knows what they're talking about.

I of course mean spoken to....

Must remember to preview before posting.........