First round of appointments for ASD DS coming up - any advice?

[SammyK]

DS first thread here for those who not familiar with us.

Well I have first appointment with a paediatrician next Tuesday, and then with SALT on the Wednesday.

I am anxious that I cover everything I need to, and don't get dismissed as the LEA have done. Knowing my luck DS will be on top form and tey will say he is fine!

What happens at your first appointments?
Does anyone have any tip? Anything they wish they had said/done/taken? TIA

They will probably ask you lots of questions about your pregnancy, ds' development, and any problems he's been having. It's worth writing down notes about it all in advance so that you don't forget anything.

The Paed will also be observing what your ds does while he/she is speaking to you. They will probably be looking at what your ds does with the toys in the room (usually set out for children to play with), whether they use them appropriately, whether they bring them over to you to show them to you or share them.

If the Paed hasn't already had a letter from the nursery describing how your ds is while he's there, it might be worth asking them to write one for you and take it with you.

Our Paed also gave a very brief physical examination (listened to chest, measured head etc). I think in some areas they also routinely ask to test for things like Fragile X so that this can be ruled out.

Whether you get any answers at the first appointment will probably depend on the Paed. With ds1 the Pead asked us what we thought the problem was. When we said ASD they agreed with us but said that a multi-disciplinary assessment would be needed first before it could be made official. With ds2 the Paed knew that we already had experience of ASD and told us that his provisional dx was AS.

Good luck.

I agree with CT that writing notes really helps - also note down any questions you want to ask.

With ds the paed appointment went pretty much as CT describes. His SALT appointment took about 2 hours and involved a mixture of questions, observation and language tests.

Good luck

Thanks for your advice coppertop and dusty.
So I guess paediatrician appointment is more of an intial what are you here for? Well we will do this and that.. type appointment. Do all initial salt appointments take that long dustystar?? If so I'm glad you told me!

Ok so I will put a piece of paper out somewhere now for questions thats a great idea.

Rang up for my dla forms yest Dustystar thanks for your advice on getting them.

Our SALT assessments only took about an hour. The SALT did things like asking ds to give the spoon to the doll, make the teddy a cup of tea etc. She was basically looking at what level ds was able to understand instructions. She also showed them pictures and asked questions about them, including asking them to point at pictures in books.

I don't know as ds has only had the one SALT appointment Sammy and i don't think he'll need to see her again. It was part of his assessment for AS. Maybe his was longer becuase he is 8 and they needed to assess more complex understanding of language.

Good on you for ordering the forms - now you have the hideous task of filling them out{{{hugs}}}