Post Assessment Help

Hi All

Looking for a wee bit of help and advice. 

I recently went for an autism assessment and got my results back yesterday and not sure what do to now, if anything. 

Basically, the assessor has advised that I am not on the autism spectrum and provided me with some of the reasoning behind that decision. 

To give a little bit of background about myself, I am in my early 40s and a couple of years ago, my then 16 year old son was diagnosed as being autistic which made me start to look at my own behaviour over the years, so finally decided to get an assessment.

One of the issues I have with the results of my own assessment, is not the outcome in itself, but the reasons provided for the outcome. 

They mainly focused on what I was like growing up, stating the fact that I had friends going through school and that I performed reasonably well in school and I didn't show signs or hand flapping or rocking back and forth and movements like that. The assessor mentioned that I was very likeable during the assessment as well. 

One of my concerns is that my son doesn't present any of those traits either, had lots of friends at school, was really well liked by his teachers, can come across really nice and friendly, in general, but he is absolutely on the autism spectrum. 

I was mainly expecting to be told I was autistic, I have stimmed most of my life, I have a very limited diet, I have no close friends, actually have very little friends at all and have struggled for the last 25 years in making friends and some other things as well.

So my question is, what should I do now, is there any point is requesting a second opinion from the same organisation that have already stated that they don't believe I am on the spectrum or just accept their diagnosis and try and move on and do what I can?

Thanks in advance for any advice. 

Parents
  • I didn't get a diagnosis because I don't have enough routines apparently but identify with so much on here that I don't think I need the bit of paper.  Also I know myself better then anybody else and the struggles I have.  I found this piece of research https://www.gold.ac.uk/news/autism-and-ageing/ which suggests that you may not show much at an early age but it develops over time, the research into Autism is continuing all the time so they may find out other things, plus with the number of older people being diagnosed I do think it can make itself more pronounced as you get older

Reply
  • I didn't get a diagnosis because I don't have enough routines apparently but identify with so much on here that I don't think I need the bit of paper.  Also I know myself better then anybody else and the struggles I have.  I found this piece of research https://www.gold.ac.uk/news/autism-and-ageing/ which suggests that you may not show much at an early age but it develops over time, the research into Autism is continuing all the time so they may find out other things, plus with the number of older people being diagnosed I do think it can make itself more pronounced as you get older

Children
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