I've had an appointment with the Therapist at Camhs, who DD saw last week for the first time. DD had seen someone in the summer who wanted her to be assessed and from that DD was referred to this lady. In our area, we have a diagnosis 'pathway' so there will be a SALT, Community Paed, EP, camhs, lasc who all need to see her and send in a repport. At the final stages there will be a meeting where they will either say yes/no to a diagnosis of an asd.
DD has had all but the EP & lasc, and even these will be completed in a few weeks. The only reason Camhs would normally get involved long term is if it was mental health issue (on it's own, rather than with a DX of an ASD) or a referral had been made about ADOS.
So, camhs lady was saying she's talking as if we've got the diagnosis of ASD, as she feels with all reports she's seen, with talking to DD, us etc that DD won't need an ados, as each 'expert' has picked up her difficulties immediately and we shouldn't be too far off.
I've been fighting so much with regards to the Statement process & her not being in school, that I hadn't realised everybody will be gathering soon (I use that term very loosely) to decide.
Camhs also brought up DD's school and she does not feel it's appropriate at all for DD and asked if we'd thought about taking her out of MS and putting her in a SS. Obviously, we feel SS would be much better for DD and she said if we need a letter of support from her or anything else, that she'll sort it out.
It's been one heck of a week, with LEA refusing to assess. Then when the expert gets involved they see these things immediately and tell us we should assume she already has that dx, as it's just a case of making it 'official' now.
Sorry to go on (and on some more) but I really needed to get it out of my system.