What do you need in order to qualify as an ASD assessor?

Post Reply New Topic

Not me. I am skeptical of nearly everyone -- including the Clinical Psychologist who diagnosed me last year.

I tried to find out from google but it kept giving me links about who will diagnose autism rather than who can diagnose autism, which as you discovered is a very different thing.

The NHS website gave me this:

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Autism/Pages ... dults.aspx

Of course that is through the NHS and does not address private clinics. Google couldn't find me anything about requirements for private clinics. There may be no requirements but then again the NHS may completely ignore any assessments not done by NHS-affiliated health professionals when it comes to accomodations or help. I am in the U.S. so I only know what I can find from google, no personal experience.



You are not alone on WP in thinking that. But then I suppose what matters is what you mean by 'valid'. It wouldn't be valid for any formal accomodations or help but would it be valid for peace of mind? That's a tougher question. Although many self-diagnosed people on WP have later been professionally diagnosed and also many people professionally diagnosed have had good reason to doubt their diagnosis, there is the problem that a non-professional diagnosis is, at best, yes/no. At its' very best, a non-professional diagnosis would be able to accuratel;y say if somebody has ASD or not but would be unable to say what else it could be if not ASD.

By professional diagnosis in this case I mean somebody who has 1)gone to medical school 2)has clinical experience with conditions involving the brain. That would be a bare minimum. I could not find what the regulatory requirements are but the NHS website has only people who meet those minimums doing the diagnosing. I couldn't find anything about private clinics.


Here's where things get hinky (if 'hinky' is not a term used in the UK, it means 'suspicious and wrong but not in a provable way'). "must have had some qualifications" and "labelled himself a neurologist" just does not sound authentic enough for me. In the U.S., it is customary for doctors (and all health professionals) to hang a plaque on their wall that shows what school they graduated from and with what degree and any further liscensing qualifications they have. That same info now also appears on their websites. That information can be verified so you don't have to just go on their say-so. Was this guy actually a neurologist?

The hinkiness continues. If both the pharmacist and the GP were doubtful about dealing with his prescriptions that means there was something about his authority to make prescriptions that seemed "off" to them. Perhaps they thought he was fake or perhaps he did not show up in any database of people allowed to make prescriptions. That the enquiries they made allowed them to proceed must mean that his qualifications were not faked. But still something did not feel right to them. Perhaps in the UK, neurologists never write prescriptions for Ritalin even if they are legally allowed to and that was a red flag. Or perhaps they doubted he was truly a neurologist.

This sounds so very "off" to me (hinky? Yes!! !) Why would a neurologist need a posh-sounding address? Is the address the only thing giving him legitimacy? What about his medical school diploma? What about his hospital affiliation? If there are neither of those things and his legitimacy rests on his address (that it is within a clinic), that sounds not-legit.


One would hope. But now that we have google, don't depend on the clinic. Google any future doctors. That he was an expert witness in a court case does give him some legitimacy as an authentic doctor (since I am assuming courts check qualifications so a case doesn't get dismissed) but "irregularity in conduct" makes him sound like a rogue doctor. From everything you have written it sounds like a doctor who did legitimatelly go to medical school and graduate but then his professional practice was suspect in some way. The lack of hospital affiliation, the weirdness at court, the dubious reaction of pharmacist and GP, all adds up to somebody who was given the diploma to practice medicine but did it in some horrible and wrong way in actual practice. A rogue doctor. Not a good bet for a trustworthy diagnosis.



Live and learn, I guess. Take advantage of the internet and google all future professionals that you might deal with before you actually deal with them. I certainly do. That way you find out who has a long and reputable history of practicing medicine and who is on the fringes of reliability.

I'm sure that there are regulatory requirements in the UK, but I'm from Switzerland.



A professional diagnosis is not about filling out a questionnaire. That's just the screening to see if it's worth getting a professional diagnosis and for the professionals to see if it's worth letting you do the more expensive tests.



Speak for yourself, please. Before I decided where to get assessed I made very sure that the person doing the assessment was qualified to diagnose autism in adults.

Janissy - here in the UK we speak of Murky Waters, which is probably similar to Hinkiness - I think that the world of adult autism is in roughly the same place as acupuncture or osteopathy or homeopathy etc. There is lots of literature, there are many practitioners, and there is lots of mainstream scepticism. The big difference with diagnosing adult autism is that it makes no claims to be able to offer any kind of treatment or cure - it simply confirms what the 'patient' already knows.

The reason why I am not strongly critical of the guy with the bow-tie is that my estranged wife came with me to the appointment, and on the way there, I talked her through the results of the research which I had done since we separated. She experienced the Eureka moment of understanding which has often been described on WP, and it provided her with an explanation of the difficulties of the previous 30 years.

Since then, my wife and I have been the best of friends, and I consider that my money was well spent.