The PIP experience is challenging.

The best thing I did was go to the Benefits and Work website, subscribe to them so that you get access to the member's section. In there you get detailed help on how to fill in the Pip, ESA or Appeals. I can't remember which way round it is but there is advice for both physical and mental health disabilities ( I needed both).  It sounds like you really need some help to do this so ask your local council to put you in touch with their Welfare Rights team or go to your local Cab. If I had managed to fill the forms in sufficiently to begin with I wouldn't have had to appeal which I didn't get. The hearing was so awful I didn't get any help for over a year because I just couldn't cope with any more. Then my Welfare Rights stepped in again and sorted me out so that I got both ESA and pip. I didn't have the autism diagnosis at that time I had enough other issues to get them. Hope this helps. 

Please tell me more because your account seems somewhat familiar.I scored 0,and getting tired of fighting through my life all the time.

No I'm not Steve. Steve is one of the people running Benefits and Work and it's his work not mine

Misfit61 if you are Steve in the letter above, it will be edited out by admins, possibly even if it isn't your details. If you can remove it yourself, it will save some grief. Thanks for that, it is just what I need.

https://www.mypipassessment.co.uk/your-assessment/at-your-pip-consultation/ 

Can I record my consultation?
Sessions can be recorded. There are a few important points to note if you wish to do so:

Try to give us 24 hours’ notice - this lets us confirm that the Healthcare Professional in question has given their consent for you to record them.
We will ask you to sign a recording agreement. This tells you how you can later use the recording, and helps us keep your details confidential.
You will need to use your own recording equipment. To protect all parties, DWP restricts approved devices to those that produce two identical recordings simultaneously. Please note that this does not include laptops, tablets, smartphones or MP3 players.
For more information on recording your assessment, please contact our Customer Service Centre. You’ll find the telephone number on your appointment letter or on our Contact Us page.

This bit has changed they used to have to provide the equipment to record but so many people requested it as back up for future tribunals that the system got blocked as they didn't have enough. I see they have made it even more difficult by restricting what you CAN use to record with.. but you don't have to record just proof of what is said

I don't know specifically about the clause and autism/Aspergers but this is a fairly recent piece from Benefits and Work about home visits.. it's rather long ; 

15 March 2017 Update: PIP Cuts Update, PIP and ESA Home Medicals Uncovered

Category: Latest news
Created: 14 March 2017

Dear Reader,

Changes to the PIP mobility component are due to come into force on 16 March, in spite of widespread opposition.

The DWP have said that people who may be affected by this change in the law are those with conditions including:

Learning disabilities
Autism
Schizophrenia
Anxiety disorders
Cognitive disorder due to a stroke
Dementia
Depressive disorders
Post-traumatic stress disorder Phobias
Obsessive compulsive disorder
In our latest update on the changes, we have news of a 38 Degrees petition against the new regulations, an Early Day Motion seeking to overturn them and the response of the Social Security Advisory Committee (SSAC).

SSAC make it clear that they do not accept the argument that no existing claimants will be affected by the changes.

They point out that some claimants may have been awarded the mobility component on the basis of Upper Tribunal decisions that found in favour of taking psychological distress into account for descriptors where it was not specifically included. This would be descriptors c, d and f of the ‘Planning and following journeys’ activity

As a result, these claimants may lose out in the future when their award is reviewed.

Though, as SSAC also point out, where people have lots of difficulties with following a journey, trying to disentangle psychological distress from other factors is likely to be very difficult and lead to inconsistent decision making.

So, it’s far too early to be sure which current claimants might lose out and we’re likely to have many more years of court battles.

The best thing you can do if you think you might be affected is to make sure you keep yourself updated about any changes in the law and, if you do lose out, consider an appeal.

However, given that the new regulations are due to come into force on 16 March and will affect new claims made from that date onwards, as well as review decisions made from that date onwards, we have now published an updated guide to PIP claims and reviews.

The updated guide takes full account to the changes that affect the ‘Going out’ and the ‘Managing treatments’ sections of the PIP 2 ‘How your disability affects you’ claim form.

Subscribing members can download the updated guide to PIP claims and reviews now from the members area of the site.

PIP AND ESA HOME ASSESSMENTS – YOUR MP WON’T LIKE THIS
We’ve now published the results of our survey into PIP and ESA home assessments. Many thanks to the almost 1,900 people who took part.

Your MP probably won’t like what we discovered, though.

Amongst our findings:

83% of the people who completed the PIP survey had been allowed a home assessment, whilst the figure for ESA was only 41%.
3% of PIP claimants had a decision on the paper evidence alone, without needing a face-to-face assessment, but this leapt to 28% for ESA.
38% of PIP claimants who had a home assessment hadn’t even asked for one, whilst for ESA it was just 7%.
51% of ESA home assessments were carried out by doctors, for PIP the figure was just 4%.
And, as in assessment centre medicals, many home assessments still involve a health professional staring at a computer screen and reading off questions, with no hint of empathy for the person sitting opposite them.

Or, in one bizarre case, for the person sitting in the next room:

“The assessor sat in a different room to me as he needed a table for his laptop. He complained about the software for home visits throughout and never broke from typing to even look up when I spoke.”

But what your MP really won’t like is the fact that, over and over again, people told us that when they were unreasonably refused a home assessment, contacting their MP about it had a dramatic effect.

We didn’t hear from a single person who had been refused a home assessment once their MP was involved, whether it was for PIP or ESA.

So, with apologies to all the people we know already work really hard in MP’s constituency offices, if you are refused a home medical and you have solid grounds for requesting one – we strongly recommend you contact your MP.

Good luck,

Steve Donnison

not sure if this is the sort of thing you were looking for... 

Do you know of the clause, mentioned in the first post?

You are very welcome.  It took a while for me to find places to help so glad to be able to share. 

I have yet to do my Pip, I am waiting on a date for the ESA assessment, I got a letter from the GP saying a home visit is required, it seems a bit cloak and dagger at time's, as if my future depends on how well I can act. It is a shame, but that is the general consensus from those who have been through or work for the system. I need to be able to survive before I will be able to thrive, knowing that I am taking this path in a very cautious manner. Better safe than sorry. Thanks again for the information you supplied Misfit61.

PIP and ESA horrendous. But I have been helped enormously by the website Benefits and work for both PIP and ESA. Did you know you can ask your Gp for a letter saying you cannot manage a medical other than in your own home? Did you also know that you can request the interview to be recorded in which case two recorders are needed so that they have a copy and so do you ( check up on that tho as not quite sure that's right but think so). The goalposts keep moving and it's not easy to keep up with. If you can fill the original forms in well initially it helps a lot and a good idea to seek someone familiar with the form and how to fill it in. Believe it or not but if you can fill in your own forms it can work against you. The help I had was invaluable. The Benefits and work shows you, citizens advice can help, and your council Welfare Rights also. Sorry if you've read me saying this in another post but it took me a long time to get my forms done well enough for them to listen and just want to prevent others going through unnecessary distress. 

I agree with you there. What i think should be done is that you are assessed on how affected you are by your condition, like where on the spectrum you are on. To me autism and aspergers should be reclassified as a mental illness, this was removed in 2013. With mental illness diagnosis it should always go back to the simple explanation. How it affects your brain, your body, and your daily life. But then the so called do gooders come in and say its not that simple, well sorry to say this but until they know someone well with this sort of condition, then they won't understand.

See first paragraph above otherwise they'd snowed under by the sheer volume of applicants so they continually make it hard and harder. On the other hand many people might get too stressed to go to appeal of the next stage appeal. I get stressed without any recognizable reasons so its no big deal to go all the way for me. 

They have always insisted that it is not having a condition but how you as an individual are affected so nobody can just rely on being an Aspie. I would suspect that taking the diagnosis to the back of a theoretical list of symptoms with the symptoms themselves becoming more important might work better for anyone reading this as a PiP virgin? Bearing in mind there is enough diversity within ASD so that maybe 3 or 4 people could have a mixture of differences. Please this is just a rough estimate anybody so kindly refrain from compiling a list.

The DWP recently responded with "you engaged well with the assessor answering all of her questions, showing no signs of anxiety" (on maximum dose Citalopram specifically for anxiety though it is an antidepressant). I am not going to waste my time trying to get through to some pencil pusher that having an obligatory interview and answering questions cannot ever be compared to social interaction by any stretch of the imagination unless the person alleging it has an undiagnosed ASD? But I will put that point in my appeal.. My wife is going to be my representative pulling no punches as I recognise my errors. 

if they would let the NHS and local doctors assess PIP this would not be a problem. When we give bits of the NHS to independent  assessment services. It is better to be assessed by people like doctors who will understand the situation you are in way better.

I asked for a review of my PIP last year. In the review they deducted points which I had for mental health and gave me extra points for physical health. They also shortened the length of time before the next review. They don't seam to be able to understand if someone has more than one thing wrong with them. I had a hysterectomy due to womb cancer and they say I should recover, but I also have more permanent health concerns which they refused to acknowledge in the review. Where I lost the points was because I engaged with the interviewer, similar to you, because she created a rapport with me. Refusal to acknowledge when someone is extremely socially isolated can be very hurtful.