attempting to get an official diagnosis

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Hi, I'm new to the site & hoping for some suggestions or insight that may help me. I'm 32 & firmly believe I am an Aspie. I went to a neuro psychologist recently in an attempt to "officialize" things (I'm a single mother of 5 & in need of support services or I wouldn't bother). Basically the guy decided it "can't" be Autism because I can "read non verbal cues" & "autistic people can't do that". I tried to explain that I had fully considered that, that I came to the conclusion that that's how I fill in the conversational gaps due to me not always understanding what someone is saying based on their words alone & that I feel it's a coping technique I have taught myself since childhood etc etc etc. He then proceeded to say that that amount of introspection itself was proof that it isn't ASD because, again, "Autistic people can't do that".

After reading his typed up report I found a ton of misunderstandings & misrepresentations of what I had said during the interview portion of the process. He even referred to my therapist as DOCTOR Brooks LCSW (he is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker) which agitates me (in my mind it shows his disregard for accuracy/details/etc).

I do plan on following up & getting a second opinion elsewhere but I would love to hear what others think first. I've tried talking with the very few people in my life I'm comfortable talking to & they just told me to get a second opinion & didn't seem interested in actually discussing things so.... I wound up finding this page.

Thanks to everyone who takes the time to read this & an even bigger thank you to those who reply!!

What matters is what you believe. When it comes to healthcare you need to believe in yourself no matter what anyone else tells you, regardless of their formal education or professional title. You must realize that most doctors have superior ignoring skills, which they likely honed over their length of their entire career. Their ability to ignore and misunderstand everything a patient says to them is likely to out match the average patient's ability to articulate themselves and their problems, especially if they are not prepared.

Seek another neuropsychologist out and try again, but before you do you will need to make some changes in your approach. See the process of getting an autism diagnosis as a murder trial and you are the prosecutor who needs to prove their case beyond a reasonable doubt. If you failed once, you get right back up again, reformulate your plan of attack and strategy, create a concise, coherent plan, anticipate all arguments that your opponent will make and create a rebuttal to them before you even step foot in their office, before they even have a chance to open their mouth.

You need an expert who understands have autism presents in adults of your gender. And that means they can see through coping methods. This may mean extensive reasearch, money, and travel.

Two possibilities:

1) The doctor was wrong

2) You're wrong

There are some troubling things in his assessment. It sounds like he did his assessment based entirely on interview, without using any testing. Did he use any questionnaires or tests like the ADOS? How does he know that you are able to use nonverbal cues (or not able to)? That seems like that would be difficult to determine in a single session. And I've never heard of a lack of introspection being a diagnostic feature of autism. I agree that it might be worthwhile to seek another psychologist, and ask if they have experience in testing autistics.

He did do a number of tests including the WAIS-IV, WMS-IV & CARS 2. My IQ came out as 121 & my CARS as a 19. He made references to "over reporting of symptoms" & using "caution" when interpreting results in his report. I did a little light digging into the tests themselves & am skeptical of how accurate the CARS test is. I feel like it's based on outdated male centric research.

It was his dismissive attitude & inability to accurately summarize what I said during the interview that really made me question the process as a whole.

He went so far as to tell me I should be happy because this means there's still "hope" I can "get better" & asked what I was "expecting to get" out of testing. Ugh. My therapist is totally on board & is pretty irked as well.

OP (in case you don't know, that's the person who opens a thread, with an 'Opening Post') I am sorry that you have had such a distressing experience. 'Confirmation bias' on the part of clinicians can really derail assessments like yours, and then the person has to deal with the emotional upset of experiencing poorly-founded discounting, trivialisation and the psychological distress of knee-jerk invalidation as well as all of the original issues which led them to seek an objective, properly qualified and competent diagnosis in the first place.

Yes, as someone was quick to point out, you could be wrong, though even if you are, that doesn't excuse the knowledge incompetence of the paid professional that you consulted.

Sadly, I am getting to the point of wondering if, in the USA, (from what I have read on WP) the autism diagnostics field is seen as an 'easy' work option for some of the clinicians who only just scraped through their training - (C- mercy passes?) - and the power imbalance of working with a stigmatised (ie relatively powerless) group may even be a particular attraction for this less able group of graduates because their limitations are less likely to be challenged by a relatively voiceless population who can be so easily dismissed as insufficiently able to evaluate the value and meaning of any encounter with an unknown person.

We have a long long way to go.

You should def get a second opinion. He probably doesn't like women

B19, very true. Also outside the U.S...

I am guessing particularly in the UK too (though admittedly this is speculative on my part). What I am partly basing that speculation on is astonishing government support in the UK for basically unqualified people to be licensed to "mess with people's heads" - they have made it possible for someone to do this (ie treat depression and anxiety which may have multiple causation of longstanding - a presentation which would challenge even the most adept graduate clinical psychologists) after only 6 weeks of training in cognitive behavioural dogma.

After 'successful conclusion' of this brief and narrow tunnel vision training, from suppliers not universities (as far as I know) the 'graduates' advertise themselves and their services misleadingly in my view, as 'qualified cognitive behaviour therapists', and the government is happy to provide an income stream of clients for 'work readiness programming' basically..

Strange new glitch???

My reply to your post immediately above was shown as part of your post and not under my name as the real poster of it.

What is going on?

Yeah I saw that, "huh"? Doesn't matter for me though, but if it's a glitch it should be fixed sometime
Interesting what u wrote though, didn't understand all of it; so I don't know if that's exactly what's going on in my country. It would be nice to know, there's some really odd people out there doin' "therapy"

Wow! I recently had a similar experience when I went to get diagnosed (I also needed the diagnosis for accommodations and such). Right down to the introspection thing - I was told that people with ASD aren't aware of their social deficits. (Which really makes no sense if you think about it... if people are constantly telling you what you're doing wrong, eventually you just might become aware of exactly what you're struggling with.) And similarly (on the topic of nonverbal behaviors), because I was able to make eye contact with the psychologist, to her, that was simply another sign that I couldn't possibly have it. (Interestingly, I found mistakes in the report I was given as well. And after discussing the interview with my mother, we realized that the psychologist didn't exactly ask the 'right' questions; e.g., she asked my mom about repetitive behaviors, but my mom knew nothing about ASD and had no idea what it meant and apparently the psychologist didn't give my mom a clear picture of how ASD presents in girls. Since then though, I've been slowly educating her so we're more prepared for my next evaluation.)

I would suggest you get a second opinion. Someone already mentioned seeing a professional who works with both your gender and age. I'm planning on trying to find someone who specifically works with girls and women with ASD, because I truly believe we tend to present differently. Maybe we'll be able to help each other find someone or be able to discuss in more detail the traits we have.

My diagnoser took pains to explain the "broader autism phenotype" concept to me. I think many people who self-diagnose with Aspergers and can't get a professional concurrence are probably BAP. It's slightly arbitrary how Aspie you need to be before it reaches diagnostic criteria.

Another thing I haven't seen mentioned in this thread is the clinician himself may be an Aspie - diagnosed or not diagnosed - and may be judging your degree of abnormality by comparison to himself - which of course is not the apt comparison. I didn't notice anything my first two meetings with my diagnoser, but I sure did notice on the final visit that she made extremely little eye contact!