What to tell/how to prepare ds1 for asd assessment this week.?

[DontSweatTheSmallStuff]

We finally have an appt for ds1's (7) assessment with cahms but i have no idea how to explain it to him in terms of why he'll be having it.

So i was wondering how other people explained to their dc's what was going on? I don't want him to start thinking there's something wrong with him, - he's already aware he sometimes he behaves differently to his peers - "i'm not like other children"

We have an appointment at the local children's centre tomorrow for DS1 and possible ADD. I've not really mentioned it to him yet, but think I will phrase it along the lines of 'just a chat to see if we can find some useful ideas to help you concentrate at school' etc.

I don't want to play it up any more than that but I guess we'll field any questions as they arise. I'm not sure what to expect myself though. Bit nervous really.

We said to Dd3 that she had to go to the clinic and that all children go for checkups every now and then.

It was difficult for us when the doctor wanted to talk about her in front of her and she did go with the nurse for a while to weigh some children. I would just try to be very calm and matter of fact.

Good luck

Hi, we are seeing a developmental paed for the 1st time with DS (6yo) for ASD assessment this week.

We have told him it is a doctor who is good at understanding why people get upset/angry/worried about things, and that we hope she will have some ideas about what we can all do about it.

He seems really positive about the idea. He is quite into the idea of "problem-solving", which we do a lot of with him!

My 8 year old has had his triage asst with CAMHS, and his diagnostic appt is next week.

We drip-drip fed him information about where we were going and what we would be doing. He's quite aware that he's different from other children (were given ADHD and ASD questionnaires, so I presume it'll be something along those lines?), and gets upset when he sees his siblings finding some things easy that he finds really difficult. So he was very happy to think that he'd get to talk to someone who 'knows all about brains and how they work' who might be able to give us all some extra ideas about how to 'organise ourselves better'.

I agree it is difficult. He likes to catastrophise about health matters sometimes, so we have to be careful how we phrase anything to do with seeing a health professional!

marmite, yes, we also talked about some doctors knowing all about how people's brains work and why our brains make us feel or think certain things.

Good luck with all the appointments everybody.

Thanks all, that's been really helpful.

We drip feed too, being upset/angry/worried is a large part of the problem with ds1 which is why i didn't want to mess it up over-explaining things or giving too much unnecessary information to him. The 'how brains work' would definately appeal to him.

I've told him now. So far we've gone from "well i'm not going and that's it!" to being quite enthusiastic about it especially since we told him he can take his favourite toy with him. The cahms people are going to go home knowing more about Transformers than mental health issues!

faaavourite toy... yes.

ds took his coat hanger to his first appointment. well, coat hanger waving was the major sign of asd so why not!