Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone,
I finally received my draft diagnostic report last night. I had intended to share part of it with my employer, but having read it I do not feel comfortable about this. There is relatively little in the report relating to employment and it is so deficit focused that I am concerned about the impact it would have.
I've been given an opportunity to correct inaccuracies before the report is finalised and I'm considering whether to ask for more significant amendments:
I would be happy to draft the additional material myself and ask for it to be added to the report. Perhaps this would be seen as inappropriate though?
Just wondering how you felt when you received your diagnostic report - were autistic strengths highlighted as well as deficits? If you were working did you share all or part of the report with your employer?
I've been waiting a very long time to receive the diagnostic report so I was a bit surprised by its brevity and lack of specificity. I have not seen any other reports so maybe mine is typical. It is a rough draft (typos, missing words) which Is difficult for me too. I would be upset if the final version included mistakes but if I correct the grammar and spelling I might cause offence.
I would appreciate any advice anyone can offer. I expected to have some negative feelings about my report given the assessment process is based on the medical model. However, I thought it would contain more information relating to employment as this was the main problem when I referred myself - we also spent much of my assessment discussing it.
Thank you!
Diagnostic report? I was supposed to receive a diagnostic report? :(
To be honest Jenny I don't think the report is all that helpful. It goes into great detail about the ADOS but apart from that there are just brief statements that sometimes rankle. It's hard to sum up 58 years of life in a couple of sides of A4 without skimming over things.
The initial email I got with some bullet points was probably more useful. Think I may be misunderstanding the purpose of the report. It is probably just intended to summarise the assessment process, not go into what needs to happen next.
I have not discovered anything new, apart from some negative statements about me made by my parents. I have always felt rather excluded and unloved - sadly it seems I was right to feel this way. I am going to have to try and forget what they said in order to continue to communicate with them.
The autism team told me that they used to do a 25 page report which basically went through all the elements of the assessment and described the findings. They then said that this had been discontinued as most people said it contained too much information and was overwhelming rather than helpful. My response was that I EAT information and would have preferred to have the report anyway.
What I received was a very brief letter and a statement that, "Yes, we will be making an ASD diagnosis today. Any questions?"
My first question had been, "Where's my in depth report?"
I could still certainly do with some bullet points but, after all of the delays and to-ing and fro-ing with the assessment process I just tired of getting, "Oh, we don't do that" type answers.
I feel quite sad about the negative statements you received though. I wonder whether the whole diagnostic process with it's focus on deficits and meeting rather basic diagnostic criteria is just designed to elicit stuff like this. Certainly when I've been providing information for my son's ongoing assessment I've felt steered towards negatives and have made a point of telling him that there are lots of positives that I think are almost deliberately excluded from this kind of assessment.
Maybe I'm better off without this kind of report. It sounds a bit like the school report from hell. :(