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Non-diagnosed 17 year old

NAS24981

Hi all

I got some excellent advice on here some months back and am back again just to seek some more. My 17 year old son has had problems through high school, but they have increased if anything in recent years. He has a lot of sleep problems - sleeps 3-4 hrs a night and fairly serious anxiety around any kind of change in routine, test etc. We have suspected he may be ASD for a long time, not just based on these facts but also because of his social functioning generally and other 'quirks', but because he's doing OK at school academically haven't really got anywhere.

He's been having support from school but we eventually managed earlier this year to get GP to refer to CAMHS (with a letter of support from school counsellor) rather than just give yet more advice on sleep hygiene and diet! Both we and the counsellor mentioned the the possiblity of ASD when we contacted GP but despite this the letter we've just seen from GP to CAMHS just says "please see him, he has anxiety and sleep problems which I think are related to anxiety (she never actually saw my son to discuss)". So we have a CAMHS appointment next week but it's just a 1 hr standard appointment rather than the more complex assessment my younger son's going through and which we thought we were waiting for. This is complicated further by the fact that my son's over 17 1/2 so likely just to be referred on to transition services if he does 'qualify'. 

I'm not really sure what I'm asking: is there any hope?

Parents

  • Go to the one hour visit and explain the issues your son is having. Normally I'd say they could refer you to the right person for a different intake appointment. It os a long process and I'd try to change GP if you can.

    Where I'm from the waiting list for any intake is enormous, unfortunately.

    The fact that your son is doing well academically is not related to being or not being ASD. I was performing well, but so stressed out all along. He should be glad to have parents like you who treat him seriously. I was simply told to (wo)man up and get on with it...

    And in my experience you get a one hour appointment first in any case. The longer assessments have a waiting list and they usually won't give you that unless they have reason to (costs a lot obviously...).

Reply

  • Go to the one hour visit and explain the issues your son is having. Normally I'd say they could refer you to the right person for a different intake appointment. It os a long process and I'd try to change GP if you can.

    Where I'm from the waiting list for any intake is enormous, unfortunately.

    The fact that your son is doing well academically is not related to being or not being ASD. I was performing well, but so stressed out all along. He should be glad to have parents like you who treat him seriously. I was simply told to (wo)man up and get on with it...

    And in my experience you get a one hour appointment first in any case. The longer assessments have a waiting list and they usually won't give you that unless they have reason to (costs a lot obviously...).

Children
  • in reply to Blank

    Thanks for sharing your experiences NAS38983. I'm really sorry your parents weren't able to support you in the way you needed when you were growing up but trust that you're in a better situation now. We were obviously very lucky with my 12 year old as he went straight to a 2 1.2 hour multi-faceted appointment where they spoke to us all separately, took full history and did tests with him, then referred on for the full screening. We're theoretically coming close to the end of the wait for paediatric neurodisability screening - 8 month wait at least - and then I think we go back for review of all evidence. Ed Psych will report at some point too. I sort of assumed older son would get the same. We've waited 20 weeks for this assessment (after the 6 week wait for GP to refer to single point of access, and the 4 week wait for them to decide whether the referral could proceed at all!