DISCO assessment

[wanttohideunderthestairs]

Has anyone been to a DISCO assessment and can tell me what to expect? What does it entail and what sort of questions do they ask, that sort of thing.

I have, for my son who was 7 at the time. It entailed me having a long meeting - about an hour and a half-2 hours IIRC - with a psychologist, who asked a bunch of questions about DS's development from being a baby/toddler, including feeding, eye contact, interaction, reciprocity, how he responded to different types of play, speech and language development. it was very very thorough and made me understand stuff I'd never really given a lot of weight to (DS had always seemed different to my younger son but many things I couldn't put a finger on, and this made a load of lightbulbs all pop on at the same time). it went on to ask about how he is now, special interests/obsessions, how he is with his peers, friendships, at school, repetitive behaviours, how he is with a change in routine, etc.

while this was going on DS spent about 45 mins-1hr with another psychologist doing activities. when they were done, the two psychologists conferred, and I continued with mine for a while longer, and he gave his diagnosis of ASD. whole thing took maybe 2.5 hours.

Thank you, that's really helpful. I'm so anxious about the whole process as we have already been through one ADOS with failure to comply and we are now going privately so I want to make sure we actually get an answer either way this time and I know what to expect as it's quite daunting.

We went through it and our experience was that it took a bit longer than 2 hours, more like 3+, with breaks. We were there from 9.45 to 4ish, with lunch and time to speak to psychologists.