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Another question for those officially diagnosed (as adults!)

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Vladisvok
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12 Apr 2011, 3:16 pm

littlelily613 wrote:
Was that a requirement for you as well? If so, were you present at this interview? Also, what kinds of questions were your parents asked?


It wasn't really a "requirement", they asked that either a parent, guardian, or someone else who would be able to discuss my early life would attend with me. My mother went and we were both in the room together so she was asked some questions, I was asked some.

Most of the questions were things like "as a child did he do this?", "how would he react to these?". Much the same sort of questions they were asking me, but focusing more on my early years where they felt I wouldn't be able to describe it as much.



littlelily613
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12 Apr 2011, 4:36 pm

Thanks for the replies! This will probably sound ridiculous, but I guess my concern is not that I can't get my parents to agree to go in as I live with them and I know they will, but they both get kind of flustered sometimes, and I fear they will say something that will make the psych think I don't have AS. I KNOW I do, I've known for years. I also just got officially diagnosed last month--I just didn't get the full evaluation that I need for the report. This evaluation costs more than 2000$, and I don't know why I am so scared, but I just think something is going to be said that the psych will say, "nope" and then I will have to pay another 2000$ to go get it reconfirmed somewhere else. Am I worrying over nothing?



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12 Apr 2011, 6:26 pm

Maybe educate your parents a bit about ASD? I tried with my parents but they would not learn anything. I'm sure if my mom goes in she'd say "oh she's absolutely perfect as a kid, sweeter than angel. She just got lazy and stubborn later." And if asked any details she would not remember. Their memories aren't that great and that was a long time ago.



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13 Apr 2011, 6:05 am

littlelily613, I think psychs have the ability to tell apart what is relevant for the assessment and what isn't, there is no reason to worry about what your parents may say about you.

When we went through the questions in the form, I occasionally had to listen to remarks and judgments from the part of my parents such as 'You looked pretty normal as a child, could smile, laugh, etc.', 'Your only drawback was that you were ahead of your classmates, and this was why you were unable to listen to the teacher or relate to your classmates', 'You didn't want to see the speech therapist, this was the sole problem with your communication skills.' Obviously all false. I listened to them, nodded, made some neutral comments about them, sometimes argued. At the end, I collected as much information as I could, opinions too, a good psych will know how to interpret them.


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Vladisvok
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13 Apr 2011, 6:09 am

littlelily613 wrote:
Thanks for the replies! This will probably sound ridiculous, but I guess my concern is not that I can't get my parents to agree to go in as I live with them and I know they will, but they both get kind of flustered sometimes, and I fear they will say something that will make the psych think I don't have AS. I KNOW I do, I've known for years. I also just got officially diagnosed last month--I just didn't get the full evaluation that I need for the report. This evaluation costs more than 2000$, and I don't know why I am so scared, but I just think something is going to be said that the psych will say, "nope" and then I will have to pay another 2000$ to go get it reconfirmed somewhere else. Am I worrying over nothing?


While I'm not really familiar with how ASD diagnosis/evaluation works outside the UK, my thought would be:

Presumably this psych that you are seeing for the evaluation has some experience of doing these? (I'd at least hope so considering the price tag that is attached to it.) With experience you've got to think they'll have met all sorts of parents. The ones in denial about the whole thing, the ones who've watched a TV documentary about Autism and think their child has it, maybe parents who are on the spectrum and having their children diagnosed because of it, etc. So they should be able to give the proper weight (or not) to what your parents say.



Whisper
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13 Apr 2011, 6:45 am

Vladisvok wrote:
littlelily613 wrote:
Thanks for the replies! This will probably sound ridiculous, but I guess my concern is not that I can't get my parents to agree to go in as I live with them and I know they will, but they both get kind of flustered sometimes, and I fear they will say something that will make the psych think I don't have AS. I KNOW I do, I've known for years. I also just got officially diagnosed last month--I just didn't get the full evaluation that I need for the report. This evaluation costs more than 2000$, and I don't know why I am so scared, but I just think something is going to be said that the psych will say, "nope" and then I will have to pay another 2000$ to go get it reconfirmed somewhere else. Am I worrying over nothing?


While I'm not really familiar with how ASD diagnosis/evaluation works outside the UK, my thought would be:

Presumably this psych that you are seeing for the evaluation has some experience of doing these? (I'd at least hope so considering the price tag that is attached to it.) With experience you've got to think they'll have met all sorts of parents. The ones in denial about the whole thing, the ones who've watched a TV documentary about Autism and think their child has it, maybe parents who are on the spectrum and having their children diagnosed because of it, etc. So they should be able to give the proper weight (or not) to what your parents say.


It's a bit of a crap shoot depending on who you end up seeing. My mother was convinced I didn't have an ASD, took me to a psych she knew through her work.. Funnily enough, he came out saying I didn't have an ASD! Took me a decade to fix that mistake. :/. But I would imagine that's quite a rare case, so chances are you'll be fine. Don't let your anxieties overwhelm you.