camhs-parental interview

[fedupwithmorningbattles]

Hello all, Ds is currently waiting for an appointment for further assessments poss ASD. It will involve playbased observation, school observation, and a 3 hour parental interview.

Has anyone else had similar? what can be expected especially for the parental interview.

There is a very long parental interview I had to do for both DSs when they went through the dx process. It is meant to take upto 4 hours. It is a load of questions about things your DS does/doesn't do - and if they did them at age 4 (Assuming they are currently older as a school observation). So if you have any diaries of behaviour they will be really useful. Both times after mine I ended up emailing them saying I had found out the answer to some of the questions as I just wasn't sure before. e.g "Does your child nod/shake their head", ummm, genuinely hadn't ever thought about. After 2 weeks of watching out specifically for this I could say that I still hadn't noticed them doing so.
School observation - neither of my boys even noticed the assessors being there.
Playbased observation - probably ADOS, I wasn't allowed in so can't comment, although they did say with DS1 when he came out that he didn't stop talking about his latest obsession.

Yes, we had many over a period of 6 months. We met with a MH nurse who took history, asked loads of quetions, talked us through the diagnosis process etc.

We also did a DISCO assessment after this which was done by a psychiatrist and took around 5 hours.

We had to remember loads of info and like LMG I found myself checking things out such as, does she swing her arms when she walks!! I had never noticed.
And she doesnt she flaps, twitches and waves her arms about but it definitely couldnt be called swinging

Good luck