Published on 12, July, 2020
I have waited over 4 years for an NHS Autism diagnosis.I was emailed 9 documents to fill out and email back.6 were PDF image files and 3 were Word documents.I was upset by the fact that the PDFs were not in a format that could be easily filled out.They were poor quality scans, quite grainy so I could not do OCR.It made me loose confidence in the competence of the Assessor and doubt that she understood Autism.I am wondering if I am being oversensitive.They previously sent me other forms in the post to fill out and return with a SAE.If I had to email people out these forms I would have created them as Word document with boxes that could be easily filled out.I have managed to find out how to add Xs to the boxes.
I would of asked them to send me the documents in a different format as I wouldn't be able to give them the information they wanted. Just to send important stuff like that out in one format that not everybody finds usuable especially grainy photocopies or scans is unacceptable and I would say so.
Thank you. I will suggest to them that they send them through the post in future to others having ASD assessments.
Thank you, your reply was helpful.
Woodrose said:I was upset by the fact that the PDFs were not in a format that could be easily filled out.They were poor quality scans, quite grainy so I could not do OCR.
The conventional solution is to print them, write in the answers then photograph or scan them in to send back.
Woodrose said:If I had to email people out these forms I would have created them as Word document with boxes that could be easily filled out.
A lot of people setting this stuff up are very old school and don't really go in for the technology that most of us know is available - their speciality is psychology and not technology.
Don't let it get to you - just use a printer, post the stuff back and don't let it add to your anxiety.
Sometimes it can be like a virtual escape room - you need to find creative solutions to get to the end.
yeah youd think theyd just send them through post and tell you to post them back.it seems more uniform and routine and normal for any place to send it in post instead.