Hi, I am the mother of a 13 year old girl who I strongly suspect as having Aspergers. She is a very bright, practical and competent girl. She is also doing reasonably well academically despite having problems with memory and processing (diagnosed from a dyslexia screening test). She does put a lot of effort into her education as currently she sees it as the only way forward in the long run to 'escape' the current torture of going to school. Long may this continue though it is increasily difficult to get her to maintain any optimism. Socially all is not well and as she has moved to senior school things have deteriorated.
Having read around the subject and talked to a friend who is a psychologist but who doesn't specialise in children, Aspergers seems to 'fit' and explain most of the difficulties she/we are having. I have even suggested it to her (after months of battles, meltdowns, misunderstandings and tears) and having read some documents about it she too thinks it might be the case.
My question is what would the benefit be of a formal diagnosis? My daughter is reluctant to seek help as she doesn't want a label or to be marked out as any different than she already feels. I am inclined to agree unless there is help attached to the diagnosis in terms of understanding/strategies to cope/anger management etc. If it is just the assigning of a 'name' to her problems but nothing else then we may as well muddle on as we are rather than face months or years of appointments and fighting for no additional benefit. We live in Nottinghamshire if that has any bearing on services.
Hope someone can clarify how it works, many thanks x
