Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi everyone, I'm Christine, my son has been offered an assessment for Autism (he is 19) but due to the pandemic, it would be carried out online. I am wondering whether any of you have been assessed this way and what it entails. I would have thought being assessed via zoom would not give very accurate results and are there any practical tests that are carried out if you are not physically in the same room as the assessors. Thanks for any help.
Is he getting assessed as an adult or being squeezed in as a child? Also, which area are you in?
Im on the spectrum and also do assessments within CAMHS so might be able to help a little. We have found virtual assesments really helpful for a lot of our teenagers who aren't sharers. In our assessments we ask them to show us their bedrooms if they are comfortable with that and we can gain a lot about obsessions and find out their interests to try and initiate some conversation around them. We have found the trickiest for video calls are the young children but if it's quite a struggle we invite them for an in-person assessment. Remember it's what the clinicians do everyday and they will notice more than you think. Motor mannerisms can be difficult over video so we tend to go off parental/school responses and obviously ask the young person if they are old enough and seem to have a little insight into what they do. Eye contact is also tricky but we can still pick up more than you realise. Lots of trial appointments with other clinicians and family members were done when assessments first transitioned to virtual due to covid to get a sense of what things looked like on camera and figure out if we were getting what was needed.
Same, I had two hours in a hospital outpatients type dept. Interview with me, and one with mum.
I would add for the original poster. Don't take any of the 'relatives interview' personally. I was a child when this wasnt so prevelantly diagnosed. Some of the questioning, mum found a little hurtful. She took it as a personal failure.
I'd just say it is what it is, and the best thing is to get a robust diagnosis, to gain the support that may be needed now.
I was told that one of the assessments HAD to be done in person, and so I did that. everything else was tests I filled in myself, or a long interview with a family member over zoom who was asked questions about me and by upbringing and behavior.
i agree that the key assessment with the potential autistic person would be most accurate in person. some of the things they wrote in my report would never have been witnessed over zoom and they seemed to form an important part of the overall verdict.
If it is any help, the psychiatrist told me he would be giving me an ASD diagnosis about 20 minutes into the assessment.
Thanks for the prompt reply. We too have the AQ test and the other information sheets to complete. It is an NHS referral. I wonder if many people are assessed and then do not receive a diagnosis of Autism? 2 hours is a long time and I'm hoping my son can sustain the assessment for this length of time.
i had a mental health assessment via teams and i found it went very well. filled in questionaires before and then sent it and i would say it works the same as an in person assessment
It depends on who is doing the assessment. I had an online assessment over a secure connection. I had an AQ test to complete, plus a very detailed questionnaire (and one from my wife, I have no living parents). Then I had a two hour assessment with a consultant psychiatrist. No practical tests. It was a very positive experience.