Published on 12, July, 2020
I had my assessment yesterday and im really struggling to understand it. I went in totally blind without reading any info about how the assessment may be.
They already had a 2 hr conversation with my mother over the phone abiut a year before my assessment. I had loads of questionnaires to fill out to take to my actual assessment too.
When i went in there it lasted 30 mins. She told me before we started that i would have this assessment today and have another app in 6 weeks. I asked her what the other app was and she said it was a app for the diagnosis.
I think my assessment went bad. She talked alot about useless stuff, asked me to discribe emotions, asked about bullying, friends, colleagues. She gave me 4 tasks. A task with a pattern i had to make and then asked what it looked like. A task showing her how to brush my teeth, a picture book task and i got given 5 objects to create a story with. She also gave me like a oldstyle radio and toys to play with whilst she caught up on her notes which i didnt touch.
I couldnt do the last task and she seemed to get very ticked off by it. I have no imagination anyway but when im nervous my mind goes totally blank and i just couldnt come up with some story about 5 unrelated random objects.
Im wondering if what im describing is normal? I went in hoping they would ask more about my experiences and my childhood and why i do certain things. I came out feeling like id been treated like a child and wasted 30 mins of my time. I feel deflated that i waited four years for a 30 min talk and im unsure how i can be diagnosed when theyve only spoke to me for 30 mins.
My ADOS assessment, which took three hours, was the same as others have described, including
As its an NHS assessment they don't know what your capable of doing before, therefore, the basic tasks make it more suitable for a the general population. It sounds like your NHS trust have decided that they don't need you to complete all of the activities to make an assessment.
I'm under the impression that the diagnosis is predominantly based on observing your behaviour and how you respond to the questions, not necessarily the words you use. For example, I tend to give statements in conversations rather than encouraging the back and forth that NT do. In regards to the friend's question I only have one and then my husband - this is very typical for ND women, thus exploring how I experience friendships would have told the assessor a lot. Your comment about the magazine is also revealing in regards for your need for up-to-date and factually correct info.
Most autistic people have a spikey profile, showing challenges in some areas and not others. For example, I was able to guess all of the expression correctly. I also enjoy making up stories so really liked the flying pigs tasks as it brought me a sense of joy I hadn't experienced since childhood
I got asked if I knew the difference between a friend and an acquaintance, I had no idea what to say, and ended up saying a friend is someone you’d share more with. And that was it. Had to do the frog book, and the objects story. The feedback was that my story was very logical and objects were only used as intended. When she told me her story as an example I didn’t know what she was checking for but I thought her story was dumb, as she was pretending objects were things they weren’t. I didn’t do a jigsaw though. And I was given some magazines to look through while she wrote up her notes, so I looked through one and then said it was rubbish because it was 4 years out of date so no good to me. But apparently I didn’t even say it to anyone in particular.
I didn’t have to look at any pictures and describe emotions. But was asked if I could describe how certain emotions feel. I just repeated the word they used. So for sad I said you’d feel sad.
From reading what you say and from my experience with the assessment it does seem that it’s aimed at children, and not that helpful in giving you much help or answers about certain things. Like why you do things how you do.
Mine seemed very short as well, but fortunately I got a positive diagnosis on the day. Or else I think having to wait would have been horrible. I sent my questionnaires in advance, so they probably had a good idea from those.
One reason I'm on this website is to share common problems and experiences.
I came away with the same embarrassed feeling. It also felt like a utter waste of time
I was several years ago and so embarrassing that I've actively tried to forget it.
Also at the end of the story book they asked me if I understood the phrase 'pigs will fly'?
Then there were a series of BW images of people. I was asked to describe what they were thinking, their situation or emotions.
Yeah thats exactly what i had. The same picture book as you too. Did you have any other parts or was that it?
This sounds very familiar.
When i went for an assessment they told me it was designed for young children. But the results would be adjusted for adults.
I was asked to do a rubber jigsaw with very big identical shapes.
Make up a story by looking at a 5 year old child's picture book about flying frogs!
Talk about my childhood.
Did I know what friends are?
Etc.