Published on 12, July, 2020
So asd would explain so much of how my friends brother is as a person and how he experiences life. So he went through the wait for the assessment. Which many will know is a stressful time. But like many of us he wanted the knowledge to be able to understand.
The assessor said he is not autistic but his reasoning seems unfair. For example when asked about special interests he said birds. But the assessor said they like birds too so it not really a special interest. But he doesn't just like birds, he is fascinated by them and spends so much time learning about them. And drawing them. He even has birds that follow him if he leaves the house because the birds know he takes food for them everywhere he goes.
I'm not a asd assessor and don't have the training to diagnose it. But autism would fit this person so well. And it seems unfair that the whole diagnosis he got was based on such a small part of autism which the assessor seemed to not understand at all.
Has anyone got any advise or knows if there is a way to appeal or get a second opinion in such cases without him having to self fund. He lives in Scotland if that changes anything.
Sorry if I've not quite explained that right, I hope it makes sense.
Hi,
How many appointments did he have? I had 3 appointments with the Specialist Autism team, each one lasted 2 hours, it was then, at the 3rd appointment after doing the "facial expression" test that I got 13 out of 25 right, 4 of them took me a few minutes to work out that I was told I am autistic.
If this was after one appointment, then no, I wouldn't accept that "diagnosis" on the basis he wasn't seen properly.
Hope this helps.