Published on 12, July, 2020
The start of my youngest daughter's assessment process for Autism by CADU (Child Assessment and Development Unit) has come around a lot quicker than I expected it to. We had a letter this morning explaining that she will be visited at home by a Paediatric Nurse Specialist next Tuesday morning. She'll also have to have the ADOS assessment at CADU; Be assessed at her Nursery by one of the professionals involved and a Multidisciplinary Team assessment at CADU, all on different dates. I'm relieved that we're finally getting closer to getting an actual specific diagnosis for her rather than the interim diagnosis of Global Developmental Delay. I've said to a few people before that although I think there is also some rare genetic disorder involved too, she's definitely 'on the spectrum', she's got too many of the same traits as myself not to be on the spectrum. Having her helps me to understand my own quirks better. Hopefully the assessment process goes well for her!
So, little lady had her ADOS assessment this afternoon which is the end of the assessments per se. We just need to have the Multidisciplinary Team meeting with all professionals involved in her care and the CADU team to go through all assessment outcomes and reports from the various professionals that are or have been involved in her care to find out if she gets the autism diagnosis or not. The ADOS assessor said she believes that she does meet the criteria but we will see. Having an uncharacteristically slightly tearful few moments writing this!
I'm impressed with the speed at which CADU are diagnosing your little lady. It must be hard for you but just think once you know what you are dealing with, i.e autism or not or something else, she will then get the support she needs from an early age, she's lucky to have you as a mum because i'd imagine a lot of parents wouldn't have been so swift to notice the signs.
Thinking of you, you know where I am if needed. xx
Yes, they’ve been extremely quick, especially once they started the assessment process. Though one of my friends, who’s son is autistic said that once they start the assessments, they get them all done quite quickly. The waiting list was a lot shorter than I expected!
I’m mostly ok with things and I imagine that I’m a lot less bewildered by my child probably being autistic than a non-autistic parent would be. I know that autism isn’t the end of the world and I did a lot of research about autism in the few years before my own diagnosis so I’m reasonably knowledgeable about autism and the assessment process. I’d be very shocked if she doesn’t get a positive diagnosis as she’s like a mini me in so many ways, a lot of our behaviours mirror each other, beyond what you would expect from just the usual child mimicking their mum’s behaviour, it goes deeper than that. But it’s also natural as a mum to feel a little bit sad that my child has a disability. I personally have thought for a long time that she has autism and something else, she’s on the waiting list for genetic testing which will look to establish what the something else is, if anything. She already gets a lot of support, I get DLA for her and she has SEN premium funding so she gets a 1:1 at Nursery to support her to be able to join in with all the activities. But having an autism diagnosis should unlock autism specific support.
Thank you. I appreciate that xx