Your childhood records might help you if getting evaluated.

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There's been several times somone in their 30's-50's was getting or planing on getting evaluated for autism and not sure what to do about the part wanting info based on recollections from them and family members on what they were like as a child.

I know of a man who in his 40's or 50's, contacted the department of education in whatever county and or state he attended school in to see if there were any records of him left. He was told most of his records had been automatically destroyed after he turned 25. But there was some stuff left and he arranged to have copies sent to him.
Most of what he got were teacher's notes regarding his behavior starting from kindergarten. They said things about his difficulty socializing with other students, trouble keeping up and paying attention, him having meltdowns and a lot of detailed stuff as it happend. He remembered some of it, but not in that much detail. And not the evaluations of people who work with children professionally.

I don't know why evaluators don't try getting or ask the patient to try getting such valuable records, instead of trying to get people to remember stuff from their sketchy memories of ther childhood.

I went on such a treasure hunt just recently.

The school district I went too only keeps records other than transcripts up to age 22. For students like myself who had what they called a "cumulative", they were suppose to save and convert all that paper to a digital format, but somehow the company they hired to do it, lost all their data after scanning and destroying the paper originals.

A hospital where a psychiatrist that I saw a lot of worked only keeps complete records going back 10 years and briefs only going back another ten years.

The psychologist who DX'ed me also worked a lot with me as a kid and he was able to go back and review notes to help him out, I still have all that paperwork.

lesson to be learned... get that stuff right away before it becomes to expensive for someone to hold onto.

I don't believe records are stored like that here in the UK. I am going for my assessment in a couple of days, and I did manage to find a couple of old school reports to take with me. I can definitely see the value in them. They're from ages 11 and 13/14, and they do talk a lot about things that I now understand can be classed as autistic behaviours.

What's funny, though, is that I was a very smart kid. I lost my way a bit in secondary school (11-18), and I didn't do homework and couldn't get involved in class activities that required me to speak, and didn't get on with the other kids and couldn't handle group work, but I tried so hard still. I actually left school convinced that, yes, I was a bit disorganised, but the teachers still liked me because they knew the effort I put in and how I really cared about their classes and expanding my knowledge.

When I took the reports out of a box in the garage when I was preparing my 'evidence folder', I got quite upset reading them. I'd never been shown them as a child, but most teachers wrote things along the lines of 'just doesn't care, shows no interest, can't be bothered, this clearly isn't a subject that she wants to be doing, makes no effort'. It was a definite surprise because that was so far from what was going on in my head, but it explains why my teacher had seemed a bit 'meh' about my decision to take Politics when she clearly thought that I couldn't care less about the History class that she'd also taught me for years. I was fascinated in that stuff, but I did recognise some hostility in her, and I now know that it's because she thought I didn't care.

Objective insights are definitely interesting when you look back at them. I often wonder, now, with more awareness of autism would teachers look back and realise that something was up? Or would they still be just as blind to it? I imagine they don't think about the kids that have grown up and left the school, though. It's 10 years since I left.

It would be nice if schools kept your records permanently--but it seems as if they the lack physical space to do so. It would be much better than scattered recollections from some parents. Other parents, it should be said, happen to have detailed recollections of what occurred in the client's childhood.

If a person is in his 40s, let's say, those records would not have been put on a computer file; they would be paper file only--thus, there would be considerable space problems, especially in small schools.

Unless the school hired somebody to put those records on disk, which I would doubt for, especially, small and rural school districts. Almost all birh certificates produced in NYC, for example, are now on disk and easily accessible, even for those born about 1910.

I was considering it. But I was too afraid to go to my old schools and ask if they keep any records and I didn't want to bother the busy workers. It would probably take a lot of work to dig the records out, right? Not like school workers have time to spare.

Fortunately my current behavior and some stuff I knew from my early childhood (for example the fact my nursery school caregivers told my parents there is something wrong with me when I was 3) were enough to get me diagnosed.

Edit: I am curious though. I would like to be able to read what kind of kid I was. Do you think it is enough reason to go to my old school and ask for the records? Assuming they didn't destroy them yet? Apparently they have to keep them for 5 years but because they have "reminiscent value" some schools keep them longer. I started my school 20 years ago, I would like to check elementary school records but even middle school would be fine.
Does "reminiscent value" justifies it? Is the curiosity about my childhood enough reason to bother the school workers?

I was able to get high school transcripts from the 60's. It had my grades, aptitude, and psat test scores.
It cost 1 dollar.

It's a good thought and can work out well, a good post to make.

Some records are not kept depending on location though; I enquired at my local authorities and they said nothing of mine will exist from the 1960s or '70s, not even digitized, as the records would have been tossed long before the digital age anyway. I was very disappointed, as I have nothing. This is in the UK however. The US may be better about this.

My clinition had a structured interview with my sister.

What exactly are school records? Are they report cards or your IEP, what exactly are they? Are they teacher notes or what?

I have my IEP stuff from school and medical reports from it. I am not sure what my parents did with our report cards.

I found some of my Preschool grades a couple of years ago, and I could see some autistic traits in the notes taken by my teacher like: "She freezes when something goes wrong". Even though in following trimesters she stated things like: "She is getting better with her frustration".
I'd like to add that it is also very helpful if you have home video tapes. In my third birthday, I clearly handflap when I'm happy because people sing "Happy birthday" to me and I blow the candles.

Your school records would include all that stuff. If you got sent to the office for something, that should have made it in there also. For me I was looking for reports from counselors as well as any behavior reports from teachers as well as the pysch evaluation I was given in 2nd grade and the special academic evaluation I was given in 8th grade to try and see if they could enroll me in the chapter 1 program since at that time my report card was straight F's.

I agree with you. I was diagnosed at 29. My evaluator did not asked for those documents, but she wanted to ask my parents some questions. (Ideally she would have met them, but they were in a different country and also they don't speak English very well, so finally I ended up mailing them the translated questions and translating the answers back.) Which is quite a good idea, but only if your parents are supportive or at least cooperative with you getting a diagnosis, and also getting information from more than one source can't hurt.

Also would add, not everyone's memories are always sketchy. While it's a point that can be argued (accuracy or inaccuracy of personal memories) there are some people who retain recollections that are kind of immediately burned into their minds and are arguably accurate at least to what they find happened, particularly with things that were traumatic to that person -- you never forget some things, particularly if they go on to remain as stand-out events, such as meltdowns in restaurants or other public places, or, on a lighter note, things you remember liking to do.

I have never lost contact with a ton of memories from childhood, almost as if they still happened just yesterday. I can still put myself right back into the exact restaurant and chair and table I was sitting at when I went nuts one day due to all the noise and people, literally about fifty years ago -- it's not like fifty years ago to me because I've always carried that recollection around, and that's just one example. I also kept a daily journal from the age of 11 and while that's not super-early, it helped too.