Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi I have autism and associated conditions am not high functioning enough to hold down a job for any significant length of time without burning out, getting bullied, it impacting my mental health etc. I also have bipolar. There are only very limited specialist services post diagnosis in my area. I have been told by a private OT I need further assessment of other cognitive difficulties I have as well as OT input to work out work arounds once I know exactly what those difficulties are. I do not feel safe to apply for jobs without a complete picture of my neurodivergence. If I were of school age or obviously intellectually impaired I would have more chance of successfully fighting for such input.
In addition to already diagnosed slowed processing and dyspraxia, I strongly suspect I have Non Verbal Learning Disorder- where spoken language skills at vocabulary and sentence level are strong but have massive difficulties with a number of aspects of non verbal intelligence - not least visuospatial skills which means I cannot drive or find my way around unfamiliar places.
I am wondering if I could go about getting funding for this through a personal health budget - I was denied a personal budget as income dependent ESA and PIP mean I am supposedly too well off for a personal budget through my local council.
Does anybody have any experience of getting funding for private care and or out of area specialist services as an autistic person living in a post diagnosis autism services desert?