Clinical Psychologist visit

[NowhereNow]

Hello,

A clinical psychologist is visiting us at home soon as part of my son's multi-disciplinary assessment for ASD. He's three and a half. What can I expect from the appointment? Will they mostly be talking to me and DH or trying to interact with/observe DS? Apparently it will take about an hour.

I'm feeling quite apprehensive, especially as the actual panel assessment appointment is only a few weeks away and I have some very conflicting emotions about it.

Hi NowhereNow, we had an appointment with a clinical psychologist as the first stage in the autism assessment clinic. It had said on the appointment letter not to bring DD, so it was just my husband and I attending. It lasted about 1.5 hours and was quite intensive - she asked us about DD's development from birth, and her behaviours/ speech/social interactions etc. I had brought her red book, which was useful to refer to as I had noted some early milestones etc in it.
The last part of the assessment was about eight weeks later. This was done by a development paed (a different one than she had seen on earlier occasions at MDT appointments) and a senior SALT. Questionnaires about her speech/interaction/behaviours had been sent to her pre-school and to us for completion beforehand. At the appointment, they did the ADOS, and it seemed to me that the SALT interacted with DD whilst the paed observed. They sent us out for about 10 minutes, and then gave us the results.
I can completely understand having conflicting emotions about it - I found the whole experience quite surreal. Good luck, and all the best to your DS and you.

Relax, be yourselves & it will be fine.
We had this as part of ds2's initial asd assessment. She was lovely, sat chatting with me taking ds2's birth history, previous medical history (prematurity etc) at the same time as observing ds2, occasionally she would ask "is that normal for ds2" if she observed a particular behaviour. She attempted to interact with him so that she could judge his reaction & response rather than because she wanted him to perform a particular task.
She was very keen & quick to put us at ease & just explained that it was the best way to observe ds2 in his most comfortable environment (albeit with a stranger in the room).
She was able to expalin what the follow up plan would be & gave us some initial informal feedback based on what she had observed.

Thank you both so much for replying!

So far we've seen the community paed who referred him to the pre-school autism assessment team. She took his medical history and observed him playing (lining things up!). We've also seen the SALT a few times at the local children's development centre. After the clinical psychologist visit we'll have the panel assessment a few weeks later. That will include the SALT, clinical psychologist and a developmental paediatrician.

Hopefully it won't be too stressful. He's a bit unpredictable with strangers in the house, sometimes he gets very upset and sometimes he's absolutely fine.

Thank you zzzzz! I missed your post until now when I came back to update this in case anyone else is searching for information about clinical psychologist visits in future

The appointment was fine. She watched DS playing and every so often would point out something that he was doing and ask if it was typical e.g. when he used her finger to point at a picture in a book or when he lined up his toys and then put his face really close to them. She also asked about his sleep, potty-training, eating etc. and gave us some tips for areas that we're concerned about.

She also told us a bit more about what to expect at the multi-disciplinary assessment. It went quite well I think - she got a much clearer idea of what DS is really like as he was relaxed at home rather than in an unfamiliar setting, so that's positive.