Rejected for assessment

Firstly, I have a feeling this is going to be a long pace, so apologies in advance.

My eldest daughter who is now 20 was diagnosed when she was 18 – it took a long time and for the GP to agree to that referral. It was exhausting. She suffered massively in high school as she didn’t get the support she deserved or needed. When she eventually got her assessment, the assessor said we normally now go away in confer to see if we think you’re autistic, but we don’t need to with this one as you are clearly on the autism spectrum.

My youngest daughter is now 10 and we are noticing similarities in her behaviours to that of her sister that age. I know how much my eldest daughter suffered at school and I cannot let my youngest go through this.

Our main observations are

1. She is constantly spinning either on her feet, or on a spinney chair, long periods of time, listening to the same songs every time.

2.; she only likes physical touch on her terms, she won’t let anybody touch her, but when she needs physical contact, she holds on so tight to you. It almost hurts.

3. She flap their hands when she is excited.

4. When she was in her car seat, she rocked back and forth.

5. She prefers to play with the smaller children in school, then those children of her own age.

6. She has intense interests, which are exhausting to the family. When she was younger. Everybody was known by a different number, then it moved onto footballers, cartoon characters, and now it is police men from the police interceptors program. She likes to be known as PC deaf and I am PC Kev. She has written rotors for each PC work schedule including the imaginary policemen. She holds meetings with me, pretending to be in the police station and asked me to pretend to be the sergeant and be very angry about two things and happy about two other things. This starts the moment she wakes up and goes on until bedtime when she comes home from school. The first thing she will say is hello PC Kev how was your day? She will then get on his Spinney chair put Alexa on loud and spin round and round and round.

7. She knows all the petrol prices in our local area and advises people on where to fuel up.

8. She finds supermarket shopping, very stressful and clings onto us throughout our shopping trip.

9. She doesn’t have a best friend and hobbies in several friendship groups.

10. Her interests are babyish compared to those of appears for example, she is into cartoon and pretend play follow. There is a starting to experiment with make up and clothes.

11. She hates loud noises find the canteen at school and music lessons. Very stressful.

12. She sleeps with an eye mask, earplugs and ear defenders.

13. She likes me to answer for her when speaking with other adults.

14. She lines, her teddies and other toys up.

15. She attends quiet lunch, which takes place in a classroom instead of the school canteen.

16. she has to be in control of all pretend play and of adults who engage in play with her.

17. she’s interested in very few things, squishmellows and lip balm and has a huge collection of both of these items.

18. doesn’t understand the difference in play fighting and hurting people cannot read cues that people have had enough and wanted her to stop.

School put in a referral to the ASD assessments service and they have rejected her as she is not showing any signs of autism at school and doesn’t need any support. This is baffling to me because as a professional body they should know that girls mask at school and only parents are seeing this behaviour. I have a lot of fight left in me and I will appeal till she gets the support she deserves especially as she is going to high school in 12 months time.

I am exhausted with her as she is on the go every single minute of the day.

Does anybody have any tips for me and how to appeal this rejection letter and am I going crazy or does my child seem autistic going off the bits of information I provided?