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Assessed for autism

James H

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

  • in reply to Dino

    Thanks! Read it just in time as I'm about to leave for mine!

  • in reply to James H

    Just got back from it and I have to admit I felt like I barely got to talk about things I noticed in my early childhood (it was all focused on the last few years as an adolescent.) From the impression I got in the assessment, when my mum has to answer questions about her observations of me as a kid I *might* be able to join in with her but I'm not sure, so either way I'm going to have to write some of my experiences she doesn't know about down so things aren't missed. Like for example my mum is clueless about some of my special interests as a kid, and doesn't realize how obsessive I was over certain things like sinking ships and so forth. And she won't know about some of the odd social interactions I had at that age, how gullible I was etc (one of my friends told me as a joke to run into a fence at school and I did not realising it was a joke...)

  • in reply to James H

    To be honest, I don't think they are bothered about a continuous record of potential traits; I think they just need to demonstrate you have had the issues at some point and especially ongoing now.

    I took a page of notes in with me to the assessment and they actually asked if they could keep the piece of paper to add to their report. One of the things I told them about was my better than average attention to detail, and the page of notes was full of grammar errors because I typed it in a hurry before I set off, haha.

    Dino

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  • in reply to James H

    To be honest, I don't think they are bothered about a continuous record of potential traits; I think they just need to demonstrate you have had the issues at some point and especially ongoing now.

    I took a page of notes in with me to the assessment and they actually asked if they could keep the piece of paper to add to their report. One of the things I told them about was my better than average attention to detail, and the page of notes was full of grammar errors because I typed it in a hurry before I set off, haha.

    Dino

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