Published on 12, July, 2020
Hi, I’ve been holding off but after our worst Christmas (for me at least) think I could use some advise!) we have three daughters, our middle one (10) is incredibly bright, motivated, funny, sensitive and compassionate. However she is also exhausting, Has regular meltdowns (never at school), what I now realise is sensory overload, is obsessional, doesn’t really get non-planned events (such as buying something in a shop, or asking an adult a question that isn’t part of the ‘plan’), and as much as I have resisted labelling her, her dad and I strongly suspect she has autism - and school have finally accepted that they also agree. And, well, I’m not sure where to go from here. Will getting an official diagnosis change anything? Can you access any support without a diagnosis? Will secondary school (next year) be made any easier if we start the process? I just don’t think I understand the value in it. Would love some experience and opinion here! Oh, and a big hi to everyone!
Hi My daughter is 8 and we are trying to get her assessed. She only has minor problems in school (which her school have made changes to accommodate) but at home she just let's it all out the effort she puts in to "looking normal and behaving as she should" all day is simply to much and she is like a time bomb when she gets home!
She gets some help from school without diagnosis but that is down to the individual school, when a child is diagnosed they do have certain rights in school and the school also has greater responsibility to provide help, there is plenty of info on this site about education rights and diagnosis, talk to your daughters school they probably have a working knowledge of the secondary school in your area and will be able to give you an idea if she would receive help without diagnosis.
I'm pushing for it as I want people to be aware so my daughter can achieve as much as she can, we avoided it when she was younger as we didn't want to label her but I feel that may have been a mistake for us