Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi. Firstly looking for advice on how to get a diagnosis- my son is 22 had a statement throughout school/college for ‘global development delays’ full traits of autism, never diagnosed with autism.. Now he feels he needs that diagnosis- where do I start?
Also wondering for those with young adults in higher education/university. My son has just started a music degree in London we live in the north east of England, so it’s a nightmare, for me. As I am a single MAM with an adopted little 1 (I was previously a foster carer) with FASD.. his sister’s have been taking turns going up and down along with me, it’s so expensive..I am struggling to find funding for him. He gets Maintenance and tuition fees. His PIP has just been stopped (agsin- it ll be another tribunal) we have applied for DSA.. is there anything else? Iv been intouch with student mental health/finance team.. but not getting anywhere fast.
thsnks. K
Kerri-Modcan you please remove NAS63733 from the forum? They keep posting spam links on the site and I'm really concerned that someone is going to get hacked or scammed.
Hi NAS63996,
There's lots of information on our website about the diagnosis process, and this may be a good place to start: http://www.autism.org.uk/about/diagnosis.aspx .
If you have further questions, you may like to contact our Autism Helpline team. They can provide you with information and advice about getting a diagnosis. You can call them on 0808 800 4104 (Monday to Thursday 10am to 4pm, Friday 9am to 3pm).Please note that the Helpline is experiencing a high volume of calls and it may take a couple of attempts before you get through to speak to an advisor.
There's information here specifically about starting university or college including links to further sources of information including funding: https://www.autism.org.uk/about/transition/starting-college-uni.aspx. Towards the bottom of this page there is also a link to our Transition Support Service which is a free service for young autistic people aged 14 years plus and their parents or carers looking for information and advice on the transition to adulthood. You can find information about this service here: https://www.autism.org.uk/services/helplines/transition-support.aspx
I hope that help.
Regards,
Kerri-Mod
Hi. I. am new to finding my way around this site. But Thankyou so much for the information you have all supplied. I am going to ask the university about an autistic diagnosis.. I am also going to phone our GP practice tomorrow and ask if they ll refer. Fingers xxx
Hi - welcome to the group. As previously suggested, it's worth trying to contact the university's disability department first.
I went to my GP, but he was unhelpful and wouldn't refer me (he told me there were no autism services in my area, which was false, and he didn't seem to be interested in my need for autism assessment or for a mental health referral). I'm not saying all GPs will be like this and they're certainly the right place to start, but I just want to give you a back-up suggestion in case the GP is unhelpful. I self-referred to my local NHS mental health service for anxiety and what I know now is OCD (I wasn't sure what my symptoms meant at the time). When I went for my initial assessment with a mental health nurse, I raised my need for an autism diagnosis with him, and he was so helpful. He asked me lots of questions in relation to the information on the National Autistic Society website, asking me to give specific examples to help him build-up a case. He successfully got me an autism referral, in addition to support with my mental health. I've now been on the autism assessment waiting list for approx. 10 months, so it is a long wait, but I hope it'll be worthwhile.
I hope your son gets the support he needs soon.
The support grant for uni is DSA so you're on with everything there - the needs assessment report that they pay for is excellent evidence for PIP!
Some uni's may pay for an autism assessment, so I'd start with their disability dept. If they don't fund this he will need to approach his GP, it's helpful if he takes along a list of examples of how he meets the criteria. These are the examples someone else took along - https://mamapineappleblog.wordpress.com/getting-assessed-a-personal-perspective/my-dsm-v-mapping/