• Replies 6 replies
  • Subscribers 68 subscribers
  • Views 1676 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
Related
Hints and tips
  • To quote someone's message, first select/highlight the relevant text, and then use the Quote button that appears
  • To "mention" someone, type @ followed by the start of the forum name, and choose from the list; that person will get a notification of being mentioned

17 year old visiting the doctor

NAS35529

My first post!
I am mum to a 17 year old girl who was diagnosed with ASC about three years ago.  She probably would have had a high functioning Aspergers diagnosis a few years ago as she is bright, capable and people are at first surprised to know she's autistic because she manages her issues so well. 

One she doesn't manage, thought, is one-to-one situations, especially with adults, and the biggest issues are her medical appointments.  She's asthmatic so has to have regular appointments and I've spent the last couple of years trying to get her to do the talking and so on.  She'll be off to uni in 9 months or so by which point she will absolutely have to.  Last time I sent her in by herself and she was fairly close to melt down beforehand and I'm not sure how successful the appointment was.  She's got another appointment today, including her flu jab, and she's already in a wobble about it.  We had a big talk about it yesterday, about how she has a lifetime ahead of her of one-to-one situations and that this is a gentle way in as she knows the nurse and the nurse only wants her best 

Any tips?  Do I just shove her in and hope for the best or give in and go in with her? I'm trying to balance the need for her to have her asthma managed well versus her needing to deal with situations that will continue to come up.
Thank you :-) 

Sarah-Kate

  • in reply to NAS35529

    That's great news, thanks for letting us know! Well done to you both. Relaxed

  • in reply to Plastic

    Thanks all.  It went well.  I let her read through this and then told her that I'd come in with her but if I had to say anything then I wouldn't come in again.  She wrote down everything she needed to say and was much better than she has been previous times.  

  • in reply to Plastic

    Yes, that's an excellent point. It doesn't have to be a mental script (that's just me masking as usual!!). Of course, she can take a written list of points she needs to get across too, and may find that more helpful if she is particularly anxious and worried about her mind going blank.

    The first meeting I chaired as a school governor, I wrote a list of bullet points to have in front of me that started with "Look at everybody and smile, then say welcome and thank them for being here." Honestly, why no-one figured out I had autism is beyond me. LOL.

  • This is a common problem for children as they turn into adults - moving from the child where a parent does all the awkward bits to having to step-up and do it themselves.      There's a huge chunk involved in how they address the adults in their life - like deferring to grown-ups no matter how crazy their demands are.   The 'because I say so' answers give them no way to reconcile the logic and reasons for adult decisions - it all seems too random to be able to interact with.       School relationships with dogmatic teachers don't help this changeover - being kept as a child and then suddenly being expected to be fully independent just because you've had a birthday?   It doesn't make any logical sense.

    The easiest way to get around this is lots of practice with strangers that don't matter - start with getting uncles and neighbours chatting to her about life, the universe and everything, going into shops and talking to salespeople (Christmas is coming - lots of excuses to do that)   and then that makes talking to strangers like healthcare professionals into a much smaller step.

    Another thing you can help with is talking to her and giving her a script of possible questions and appropriate answers that she can pre-prepare beforehand.      Give her all of the options - and even a written list of points she needs to get across to the GP and she should be ok.

  • Hi Sarah-Kate,

    Welcome. That's a tricky one. :-)

    Could you do some role-playing at home a couple of days before the appointments to give her time to think and plan what she wants to say? I'm guessing you've been to a fair few of these checks over the years so you could play the nurse and let your daughter practice what she wants/needs to say so she's clear in her own mind before going in.

    Also, maybe you could ask your daughter how she would like you to phase-out your help/support with appointments so it's her plan rather than yours?

    Example of phasing-out support:

    • This time, go in with her and do the talking
    • Next time, agree to go in with her but you will only do the opening exchange/small-talk and she will have to do the rest
    • Time after, you'll go in with her and be there if she needs help but you don't plan to say anything
    • Time after that, you'll sit in the waiting room so the nurse can fetch you if your daughter has any issues during her appointment
    • Etc.

    It may be that one or more of those steps requires more than one repeat to get her comfortable. Also, who is booking the next appointment? Is it something you do at reception on the way out, or by phone call or online? Is your daughter doing this for herself already?

    Anyway, hopefully, if your daughter can go in with a pre-prepared mental script to follow AND know that you'll be there in case the nurse goes off-script (as part of her plan for phased-out support), then she will become more confident and more independent in these situations. However, you might also find you have to start all over again once she is registered at a new GP surgery at university. Out of interest, how far away are the universities she's applying to?

    As you say, she has a lifetime of one-to-ones ahead of her, especially being a woman (cervical smear testing, breastexams etc.) so best to start getting her comfortable with something familiar and relatively non-invasive now.

    I hope some of that is helpful? Best of luck to you both. The transition to adulthood is challenging at the best of times, but autism does complicate things, especially when, like your daughter, you're so very good at masking.

    Nessie xx