Psychiatry uk assessment - why the focus on childhood?? Partway through and likely to get discharged because I’ve not enough evidence as a kid?

Welcome to the community! I'm sorry to learn of your frustrating predicament - and have a suggestion below.

Firstly, just to clarify, assessors definitely take adulthood into account, but the guidelines for diagnosing autism do also refer to symptoms being present during childhood. 

• Under the DSM-V criteria (which Psychology UK used last year when assessing me): "Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life)." 
  
  
• Under the other major guidelines, ICD-11, essential / required criteria include: "The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but characteristic symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities."

I have similarly limited memories of my childhood. One thing that helped me enormously in preparing for my assessment was requesting a copy of my full medical records from my GP. After some initial miscommunication, they eventually provided me with photocopies of all of it, including everything from my old, archived paper records.

This helped in two ways. Firstly, it prompted various forgotten - and relevant - memories to resurface. Secondly, it provided hard, third-party evidence from various stages of my childhood. To share just one example: there was clear evidence of sensory sensitivities that had proved an issue during physical examinations.

It probably won't be possible to obtain your own records before your follow up appointment, so it might be worth asking Psychiatry UK to postpone if you think that getting and reviewing your own medical records might prove helpful for you.

Welcome to the community! I'm sorry to learn of your frustrating predicament - and have a suggestion below.

Firstly, just to clarify, assessors definitely take adulthood into account, but the guidelines for diagnosing autism do also refer to symptoms being present during childhood. 

• Under the DSM-V criteria (which Psychology UK used last year when assessing me): "Symptoms must be present in the early developmental period (but may not become fully manifest until social demands exceed limited capacities, or may be masked by learned strategies in later life)." 
  
  
• Under the other major guidelines, ICD-11, essential / required criteria include: "The onset of the disorder occurs during the developmental period, typically in early childhood, but characteristic symptoms may not become fully manifest until later, when social demands exceed limited capacities."

I have similarly limited memories of my childhood. One thing that helped me enormously in preparing for my assessment was requesting a copy of my full medical records from my GP. After some initial miscommunication, they eventually provided me with photocopies of all of it, including everything from my old, archived paper records.

This helped in two ways. Firstly, it prompted various forgotten - and relevant - memories to resurface. Secondly, it provided hard, third-party evidence from various stages of my childhood. To share just one example: there was clear evidence of sensory sensitivities that had proved an issue during physical examinations.

It probably won't be possible to obtain your own records before your follow up appointment, so it might be worth asking Psychiatry UK to postpone if you think that getting and reviewing your own medical records might prove helpful for you.