Possible ASD - 14 year old dd

[blobbyface]

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice. My 20 year old ds has recently been diagnosed with ASD while at uni. During the process it made us look closely at our youngest - 14 year old dd. I now suspect she has ASD too...my recently diagnosed ds thinks it too!
She has 1 friend, but no friends at school. She takes things literally, lists facts to us every day. She avoids talking to anyone outside the family. She can't cope with loud places and crowds - wears earplugs at certain times at school.
She coped ok at primary, but things have slowly got worse at secondary. She gets in from school and rants about everything to get it out her system.
The thing is school will say she's fine as she's no trouble and I don't really know how to start the process. Is it worth pursuing?

Looking back at when she was little - she used to throw up at strong smells, was quite aggressive towards her sister, got thought of as feisty as she always looked cross! Not much facial expression - still not much of that. No imaginative play. Main emotion was anger otherwise fairly flat. Even now her main emotion is when she's ranting - other times there's not much expression of feeling.
It's only with the diagnosis of ds it has shone a light on dd2.

I know you can go to your doctor to ask for a referral but you might need some back up from school. Chat to your doctor and explain the situation and they could give you advice.
Have a meeting with the school and ask them to look into before it's misdiagnosed with depression or something.
Find your local support centre for children with needs and they will help you.
Hope this help, you are probably worried, it takes time.

Definitely see your GP and list her traits, girls with ASD can present very differently to boys, there's lots of info online, Google for autism presentation in girls.

If she masks at school and lets it all go as soon as she gets home, that's another huge sign that she may have ASD, then add her brother being diagnosed, I think you have a good chance of referral. Sometimes siblings of a recently diagnosed child/adult will be assessed quite quickly.

Thank you for your replies. I realise now that my op was a little garbled - was feeling very stressed when I wrote it!

I'm so indecisive and can't decide whether to ask school first or gp. My problem with school is that is she is not a problem at all. They will have nothing to say about her as she does the work, is quiet and turns up. I know the waiting list in my area, once you've got a referral, is very very long. We are fortunate to have the money to be able to have her assessed privately. I looked at Lorna wing as that's not too far away from us, but I'm worried they'll say there's not enough evidence to have her assessed. I'm worried about that whichever route I go down! It will look so out of the blue.

Then I worry that she won't talk if we get as far as an assessment. She answers every question as if she's looking for the answer that the other person wants to hear. It's a crap time to start the process with Covid as our gp isn't doing face you face bodies and school is shut!

Lorna Wing are the gold standard of assessors, they have seen it all before. They do not need input from school and are very used to schools saying there is no problem. You can answer questions about her developmental history and early years.

Their tests alone are designed to show if a child is autistic without any other information being given.

She answers every question as if she's looking for the answer that the other person wants to hear. they are used to children presenting in that way and will see it straight away.

Do not let yourself be talked into a Pre-Diagnostic Consultation. It's expensive and will only give you a "likelihood" of your DD being autistic. You already know there's a strong possibility, so don't waste your time and money on that.

Book for a full diagnosis. You already have enough evidence. Stop dithering. The sooner she has an assessment, the sooner you'll know all her strengths and weaknesses and the sooner you can have help put into place for her.

Thank you BlankTimes. I will get on with it!

If your going private you don't need to worry, they will work it out.
As for talking, the clinics are used to it, they know what to do. Please don't stress and worry.

Hi, I don’t know if anyone can help but am thinking about something similar with my DD12. If you had said a little while ago she might be ASD would have not have given it any credence, even now I think it may just be the effects of lockdown but I definitely think there might be a more to it.

• social situations stress her out, she can scratch her leg or chew her hand at the thought of them, often when they do happen she is fine and people seem generally to like her

• she has one good friend and says other people think she is ‘weird’, this has become worse since lockdown

• she gets very worked up over sensory stuff, hates her door being open, hates if I try to hug her with wet hands or hair, seems to have very acute sense of smell, likes really ‘beige’ food choices and can be funny about different food touching each other

• her jokes/humour to me can seem very callous. She is clever/socially aware enough not to say it publicly but she can joke about eg threatening our toddler neighbour if she was caught destroying her snowman (I don’t think she would ever do this in real life, I’ve never seen her be mean to anyone and she is benign if disinterested in little kids)

She seemed very neurotypical through early childhood but was a lateish talker, rubbish sleeper and eater. To me she is fab, she never really had a lot of problems making or keeping friends although had become increasingly sensitive and unhappy in large groups, also seems to have very little interest in her appearance, seems to have got into trouble over posturing on the class WhatsApp and misreading it. But again, could it just be lockdown?

Mediumred, you may find this interesting/helpful, it’s a lecture by Toby Attwood (very experienced doctor specialising in Aspergers) about how Aspergers presents in girls:

Thanks so much for that @bluebutterfly36, there were one or two bits that struck a chord but on the whole it makes me think that DD’s moods are more to do with teenagerdom generally and lockdown, hopefully it will improve when school starts again. It was really useful to be able to probably rule it out as it had been worrying me. Thanks again.