Published on 12, July, 2020
Hello
This week i received a letter inviting me to attend an "initial screening assessment" to see if "further autism assessments would be beneficial" for me. It is done via a video call with a psychologist.
I have searched for further information about what this might entail but have not found much.
Has anyone had one of these?
Thanks.
Thank you. I shall try not to worry!
Thank you so much for your reply. I shall look at that website.
Had one last Tuesday. Two Doctors. Very nice, very sympathetic and will take you seriously. Try not to worry about it. It's just like having a chat.
They know what they are doing. They diagnosed me after a 45 minute chat!
I haven't got any first hand experience of these screening interviews but I would suggest you look at the list of traditional autistic traits and work out which of these you exhibit (note - focus on the ones you most closely identify with in each category).
https://www.autismspeaks.org/autism-symptoms
Make a list of these and make some notes on how you exhibit these traits - it only needs to be rough notes at this stage.
If you find you have very few matches then it could be that you are not autistic, but there are other related ways you could be "on the spectrum" - ADHD and bipolar are two common major categories that can exist - some even alongside autism just to make life more colourful.
I think that working out if you show a lot of autistic traits is a great way to work out if this is worth spending time researching or not - the diagnosis itself if of limited real value (unless you need the diagnosis of being disabled) but the knowledge of being autistic or not is the real prize.
IF you work out you are autistic then you can read a lot more about it, understand the issues, how these present and how you can make them less of an issue. You also have a great community here to share with and learn from.
I hope you find something useful from the meeting.