Is it an Autism Diagnosis?

[NeverendingPotato]

The community paediatrician report arrived today from our end of April appointment. At the end of her assessment she said all the information suggests he has autism. Then under the diagnosis heading it says "Autism but for further investigation".

I guess I assumed it would just say further investigation. Is it like a preliminary diagnosis then? I know she wants to see him again in four months.

I don't even know what this post is about. I just burst into tears seeing it written down. I guess I wanted it to end with me being deluded.

Hi, yes your right. It means she most likely thinks he has autism, but needs to rule out other things..i.e. maybe blood tests, hearing etc.

Don't be upset, I understand the feeling. But your DS is still the same person :)

Yes there's blood tests and a hearing test due.

She was going to do genetic testing due to the regression to rule out things other than autism.

So a sort of preliminary thing does make sense. I wasn't really thinking.

From reading on here I guess I'm also surprised that autism is definitely there after one visit. Does it mean he's really bad? He doesn't seem so bad to us.

Both my younger two were diagnosed in one visit with ds he has high functioning autism which isn't superficially obvious to a layperson but is to professionals

With my two the severity issue came up when we were told . With ds we were just told it was hfa , with dd2 we were immediately told she would need a statement and we would need to look at units and sp schs also she would need a microarray blood test

In these parts the comm paed will give a preliminary diagnosis. As DS2 has also had OT, SALT and EP assessments and nurse obs in class the consultant was able to give a highly likely diagnosis now to get extra support in school but officially DS2 has to have the ADOS even though this is just rubber stamping. The waiting list is about 12-18 months.

I'd advise caution. We were also told at initial paed appointment: "I believe he has autism - the assessment will determine where, not if, he sits on the spectrum", but after all the tests we still came away without a diagnosis. In our area, no dx meant no support so we were back to square one.

It's to your advantage, though, that you have this working dx on paper. In our case it was one person's word against the other. But you don't have an actual diagnosis until all the assessments are done and it's confirmed in writing.

Streaky - DS2 had seen other members of the team but was referred up to the lead consultant. I was reassured by her saying that she (it is ultimately her decision) will give an ASD diagnosis regardless of the scores on the day. He has had lots of assessments over 5 years and they all point to ASD. Having said that I will be happier when I have the piece of paper in my hand.

That is reassuring and it does sound more positive than in our case. But yes, you need that piece of paper to make it official. Hope it all goes well and you get the dx.

Thanks everyone, it all seems a little more clear now.

There was no talk of units or special school. We had a little argument about home ed so I'm sure it would have come up then if she thought he'd need something more specialist. I mean I don't think he does, but sometimes I wobble about the level of his needs.