Diagnosis done, questions

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I decided around the end of last year that I wouldn't be able to clear my mind and relax until I got a diagnosis. It started in mid-January and although I'm still waiting for the full report, which will take another 2-3 weeks or so, the diagnosis iscomplete, and it is AS.

The process involved a visit to the GP for referral to a clinical psychologist with whom I had two one-hour consultations of a general "interview" format (not sure of the correct term), a one-hour consultation during which the Mind In the Eyes and Social Faux Pas Recognition Test were administered, then a three-hour (originally scheduled for two hours) WAIS-IV test. In between consultations, I took home and completed the AQ, SQ-R, Cambridge Behavioural Test and Cambridge Friendship Test. I was able to get my sister and girlfriend to make brief written submissions about my personality and apparently these were very useful. As I said, I'm still waiting for the full report, but apparently all of my scores on those tests were well within the expected range for AS.

The WAIS-IV took an hour longer than scheduled, which I initially suspected would be indicative of a lower IQ, but apparently this was because every item was completed, whereas normally, there would be a certain number of aborted subtests due to three consecutive 0-scoring results. The psychologist said it was the longest WAIS she had administered. Despite this, my FSIQ was not particularly high. My verbal sub-score was 12-22 points higher than all of my other subscores (perceptual reasoning, working memory, processing speed).

The diagnosis is roughly what I expected, but I do have a couple of questions I will need to ask that you might have dealt with before:

* My behaviour during the consultations was certainly "authentic" for the situation, but probably more "stiff" and "stilted"than in a more familiar setting. Is this something psychologists know how to account for? I would imagine the profession would be largely pointless if they couldn't.

* If I am routine-oriented, why can't I seem to get to bed at the intended time and why do I occasionally miss my intended train (both of which make me quite angry). I love routines but I can't seem to create one for my day/week that covers everything I feel I need to do and that I'm actually capable of following.

(edited due to simple arithmetic mistake)

Last edited by Australien on 05 Mar 2012, 6:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

A good psychologist, well trained in the field of Autism can, yes. It's probably why you got the diagnosis. And yes, it would be pointless if they couldn't, unfortunately there ARE professionals out there who aren't as well trained, and can't, who won't give a diagnosis where one should be given.



Sounds to me like you try to accomplish too much. You say you try to create a routine to cover everything you feel you need to do (operative word there is "feel"), but you end up missing your train, and not getting to bed "on time." That's a priorities issue. You're either trying to finish everything before you go to bed, which is usually impossible, or you're putting too much on your plate. Sounds like you've got things in your priority list that aren't as important as you feel they are.

Every human being can only accomplish so much in a single day. For every individual, how much that is differs. You either need to drop some of the things you have on your list of priorities, or learn how to put some of them off for later. Probably a little of both.

I have had the same problem for most of my life. I now plan to quit everything I do earlier in the evening so I have time to wind down and get to sleep at a reasonable hour (though I do violate the hell out of that rule sometimes). I also plan to get to work a minimum of a half hour earlier than I need to be there. I PLAN to get there a half hour earlier, which means I either get there at that time, or, if I screw up and don't, I end up there five to ten minutes early.

I think you need to learn to let go of some things, which is a very typical problem for Aspies who think every little thing on their mind is important. Not all of them are so much.

Last edited by MrXxx on 04 Mar 2012, 5:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Could you give the exact scores? (If you don't mind.) I'm just curious about subscale scatter patterns, as I'm somewhat obsessed about them and their relation to different ASDs.


I would be surprised if they couldn't.


Not being able to stop activities and switch between tasks (autistic inertia)? Also, some autistics have not-so-good sense of time.

No, I don't mind. Here are the 95% confidence intervals:

FSIQ: 112-120
VCI: 120-132
PRI: 98-110
WMI: 106-120
PSI: 99-116

Thanks!

Is there anything particularly interesting to you about my subscore scatter, or were you just looking to collect more data?

Yes, they're taught to account for this when they're in school learning to be psychologists. People in a doctor's office, particularly on their first appointment, are usually more nervous than they normally would be. A good psychologist will know this and realize that the anxiety he sees is probably more pronounced than it would be in a relaxed setting.

Might sound odd, but you're probably having problems with bedtimes and appointments for the same reason that you're routine-oriented. Like many autistics, you probably have trouble with transitions--switching from one thing to another, switching mental gears, stopping or starting or changing direction. Routines help you with this because they turn switching into a predictable thing that is part of the same activity, the same routine, so you aren't as likely to get lost in the middle. But the routines can't compensate completely, so you tend to get stuck on one thing, making you late for other things, like getting to bed or catching a train.

See if you can get those IQ subtest results, not just the verbal/performance gap. Might give you some clues about strengths and weaknesses. If the other tests have more detailed reports, get those too. Lots of times, for a newly diagnosed autistic person, the more information you have about yourself the better.

I saw the psych again today and read her report, though it still has to be signed off by the head of the practice and there were a couple of mistakes so I didn't get to take it home.

One interesting thing she said was that I had answered a significant number of questions correctly on the WAIS but taken too long so I had to be scored 0 on those questions. I told her I had heard that a wide interval between subscores meant a FSIQ would not be issued and she seemed to interepret this as me asking to not have an FSIQ recorded which I did not, but she did say that the aforementioned aspect of my test results along with the subscore scatter meant that the FSIQ wasn't a true reflection of my intellectual functioning and capabilities, which should be considered much higher (more like my VCI score) - given favourable conditions.

She noted that I had corrected her a couple of times, which I don't recall doing, though I did query her pronunciation of "Wechsler" as "Weshler", and I'm extremely sure it should be "Wexler"

I asked her about whether she'd eliminated other conditions, and she said while I probably had OCD tendencies, they didn't interfere enough with my daily functioning to warrant diagnosis, and that while I could be distracted by stimulus, which would be consistent with ADHD, I most definitely was not hyperactive and that the distractability could be explained by Asperger's anyway. She said that I didn't have Social Anxiety Disorder or Avoidant Personality Disorder because while I did not have a strong desire for socialising, I wasn't avoidant when a a social activity was related to my interests, and that a person with SAD would shy away from insisting they were right in order to avoid conflict even when there were no realistic negative consequences unrelated to the SAD itself. She cited an example that I had given of an incident in which I was told by the principal of my primary school when I was 11 (elementary school for you Americans) to write a letter of apology for behaviour that did not break the rules but was considered socially unacceptable, and I instead wrote a letter arguing my point (rather well for an 11 year old, I think - argued among other things, that making me apologise for that behaviour was inconsistent with the school's alleged Catholic values).