Finally booked appointment to see GP about getting assessed for autism. Any tips or advice?

SongBird1992 said:

I don't know what to say to my GP or questions they will ask me.

I assume you suspect you believe yourself to be autistic so I would start by getting an online test (free) to see if you score at the level which confirms this - it may be you are ADHD, bipolar or be otherwise neurologically different to the majority of people.

There is a free test here: https://enna.org/autism-test/

The next step if this comes back as indicating you are autistic is to look at the spectrum of traits that are common for autists and list these. To find the traits have a look at:

https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/what-is-autism

For each of the traits consider how much they impact your ability to function and rate them from most problematic to least and make a note of why these are a problem for you.

If you can, type this up and you can present it, along with the test outcome to your GP - you have done all the work they will ask for so it should be a slam dunk and you can then discuss the question of wait times for a diagnosis. Expect between 3 and 5 years depending on where you live.

The trick is to get on the list then a few weeks later go back to the GP and say you have heard about the "right to choose" for going privately (where the NHS pays) - this should drop the wait time to less than 6 months.

That about covers it - good luck.

GPs must know more about autism now then than they did when I was diagnosed 5 years ago. Mine just asked me a few irrelevant questions like was I good at maths? (Yes a lot of autistic people are but it doesn’t follow that if you are good at maths you are autistic) Mind you as you suggest I had done my homework on the triad of impairments and I basically told my GP to refer me. I also timed it well because my local NHS trust had or was just opening an assessment centre so I was diagnosed within about 8 months and probably could have been diagnosed quicker if I didn’t have autism-related problems going on in my life at the time.

GPs must know more about autism now then than they did when I was diagnosed 5 years ago. Mine just asked me a few irrelevant questions like was I good at maths? (Yes a lot of autistic people are but it doesn’t follow that if you are good at maths you are autistic) Mind you as you suggest I had done my homework on the triad of impairments and I basically told my GP to refer me. I also timed it well because my local NHS trust had or was just opening an assessment centre so I was diagnosed within about 8 months and probably could have been diagnosed quicker if I didn’t have autism-related problems going on in my life at the time.