Assessed for autism

Hi, I've been through the initial screening process (phone call) and had to fill in and send some forms off, and later today (UK) I'm going to go in for a face to face thing for about an hour. Any advice on what to expect? I'm both excited and nervous - excited because I might finally be able to talk to someone about problems I have which my family can't understand / relate to but also really nervous because I don't really know what topics we are going to cover / what it will be like. For instance, is it likely we will discuss my answers to the AP / EP questionnaire things? Would be glad to hear from people who have gone through this about what the process is like!

Parents
  • Hi James.

    Might be a bit late now, but if not then please see below what I can remember from the face to face assessment meeting:

    We started with some informal chat - led by the assessor and the psychologist mostly stayed quiet throughout.

    It was explained to me that they had a set of questions to work through, which was in the form of a booklet. I didn't see anything that was written, but it was pretty much just notes based on my answers and I assume the document was filled in properly later on by the assessor.

    Questions were about all sorts, but a lot of them focussed around social life / interactions / relationships etc (as I expected). There are no wrong answers, so don't worry about it and take as much time as you need to think of the answers. They aren't trying to catch you out and will help you with things as you go.

    I had to carry out a couple of table top tasks and a little bit of storytelling using a few props. I hate doing things like that, but it wasn't too bad, so nothing to worry about.

    I was in there for about 2 hours and a bit and it flew by. The people assessing you are there to make you comfortable and get a good enough picture of you to make an assessment. Just be honest with them and try not to second guess yourself. When I came out of my assessment I spent weeks wondering if I had said the wrong things and was thinking that they thought I was making it up etc; so expect a bit of that, but don;t worry about it too much.

    Hope some of that helps, and good luck.

    Dino

Reply
  • Hi James.

    Might be a bit late now, but if not then please see below what I can remember from the face to face assessment meeting:

    We started with some informal chat - led by the assessor and the psychologist mostly stayed quiet throughout.

    It was explained to me that they had a set of questions to work through, which was in the form of a booklet. I didn't see anything that was written, but it was pretty much just notes based on my answers and I assume the document was filled in properly later on by the assessor.

    Questions were about all sorts, but a lot of them focussed around social life / interactions / relationships etc (as I expected). There are no wrong answers, so don't worry about it and take as much time as you need to think of the answers. They aren't trying to catch you out and will help you with things as you go.

    I had to carry out a couple of table top tasks and a little bit of storytelling using a few props. I hate doing things like that, but it wasn't too bad, so nothing to worry about.

    I was in there for about 2 hours and a bit and it flew by. The people assessing you are there to make you comfortable and get a good enough picture of you to make an assessment. Just be honest with them and try not to second guess yourself. When I came out of my assessment I spent weeks wondering if I had said the wrong things and was thinking that they thought I was making it up etc; so expect a bit of that, but don;t worry about it too much.

    Hope some of that helps, and good luck.

    Dino

Children