Ds1 to be assessed for ASD, what to expect.?

[DontSweatTheSmallStuff]

Ds1 was refered to CAMHS by the GP after school produced a summary of behaviour they were concerned about. Some of it was a bit of a suprise as he doesn't do it at home. Anyway we had the initial questionaire by phone a few days ago and were told it sounded like he may have high functioning autism and he would be sent for an ASD assessment and an appointment would be sent through.

So what happens next. What does the assessement involve? Will we get a diagnosis one way or the other or does it take longer than one assessment. Sorry, I really am clueless about what to expect?

Hi - sorry to hear about your problems with ds. I'm no expert on this and I think the assessment process differs depending on what area you live in but thought I'd respond as you must be a bit worried and no one else has replied yet. My own experience with ds was that there was a vast range of assessments undertaken involving speech and language, psychological (to rule out any other causes for the behaviour), sensory profiling and lots of questions and observations in different settings (eg: school, home, medical). To reassure you none involved any physical discomfort or pain, just maybe a bit (a lot!) of drama on ds's part. The time frame for this can take some time but again this depends on the area you live in - in our case 18months from GP referral to final diagnosis. Ds's assessment process was called 3di although from reading other posts this again is different depending on area. In the 3di case there are 3 possible results - definitely not ASD, maybe ASD and definitely ASD. At the end of the process I was confident that the diagnosis given was correct and unchallengeable as it required the agreement of many professionals. I hope this helps a bit.

well the first thing that was considered when I went to the gp was a parenting course... (missed out because I pulled the nursery teacherr card and using all strategies etc..) but that would have delayed by about 6 months. were referred to paeditric outpatients. saw one dr who took a history. repeat, she saw more behaviours the next visit so referred on for furrther assessment as she was leaving. (otherwise would have needed a third appointment. I suppose how many of those you go to depends on the behaviour of the child)

filled in a cars form.. (childhood autistic rating something) I used google to help me put down relevent behaviours that are normal to us and I would not thionk of including without a prompt

then there were observations by the speech therapist at school. a visit by the next dr up the chain to school. school then pushed for moving the process along rather than a further review. we have been to ados (autistic diagnostic observation schedule) an apointment where they carry out a series of activities to look at his responses and social interaction. we have an appointment tomorrow to discuss this. that is as fara as we have got.

Ds 8 yrs: Referral from Gp 15 months ago, 1 month later received paperwork from CAMHS asking for more information, CAMHS initial appointment 4 months later this didn't go too well because a) I was very emotional and b) Ds was with me which made things harder they realized I was struggling with this and ended it early. While there we were given a couple of questionnaires to fill in at home which were Communication checklist 2 (CCC2) and The childhood autism spectrum test (CAST), 4 months later ADOS (Autistic Diagnostic Observation Assessment) was done with Ds alone with Speech Therapist and clinical psychologist, 4 months later part one of The Autism Diagnostic Interview-Revised (ADI-R) and we are due to go back again next week to do the second part. I think after that it will go to panel to decide the outcome but I'm not really sure how long that will take.

School also had a copy of the CCC2 to fill in and also The behaviour Rating Inventory of Executive Function Questionnaire (BRIEF) I should imagine they will do the same in your case, if not I suppose you could request this. Hope this helps I was pretty much the same as you 15 months ago.

Ps you can find out about most of these on wikipedia

Thanks all, that's really helpful. I was worried it would just be one appointment where someone watched/observed him then made a decision (like I said, i am really clueless), and he'd be on his best behaviour and we'd be sent on our way.

Susan - school are running a parenting course which i signed up for before the referal when I was still thinking he's not autistic, i'm just crap of parenting. It'll be interesting to see whether it helps either or us (me or ds1)

Dontsweat on the initial appointment the psychologist didn't really flag anything. Ds had good eye contact, volunteered information, but was reluctant to move from the lego which he was playing with to something else...but during the ADOS the same psychologist had absolutely no eye contact, he showed no interest in any kind towards the psychologists attempts to engage him in pretend play, but did still volunteer information. I have seen posts on here about Dc being seen for 1 appointment and discharged almost seems to be when it is the parent who has noticed the difficulties, I should think that the fact there is multiple people with information regarding your Dc they would have to see him more than once in more than 1 setting.

think of it as at least one box ticked. you can saya you have been on the parenting course, you are implementing the strtegies most of the time and they are not making a difference. look for triggers to tantrums and bad behaviour too. supermarket is classic.

How did you get on today, Blackeyedsusan?

HW x

diagnosis! asd with some evidence of sensory processing disorder.

Yey! Well done, hope you're ok. Xxx