in need of information

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i'm not sure where to put this, so if it's in the wrong section i apologize. i'm eighteen and i want to know how i can access my medical history, in search of real answers. my mother said that i was diagnosed with autism when i was four, however she has also backtracked and said it was aphasia, she never really went into much detail and we don't speak that often. i would ask her again, but i don't want to change our routine. i'm just really confused because if i was autistic, i would be seeing someone, right? is there a test i can take? i don't think i fit all of the symptoms, but enough are there to make me wonder.

I'm sorry you don't get along with your mother. Sometimes, mothers can be a trip!

If you're still in high school, it's theoretically possible that you could get assessed for autism through the high school.

Welcome to the Forum. Have you any particular "special interests"?

Welcome to WrongPlanet! I hope you enjoy your stay!

First, ask the steward of your medical history; that is, ask the doctor or administrator in charge of keeping your records if you can review them and/or have a copy. If that fails, hire a lawyer to do it for you.The only way to do this right is to consult an appropriately-trained and licensed mental-health professional. On-line tests are skewed toward a positive result, and are therefor misleading. Also, no one on this website is qualified to make a valid diagnosis, so don't trust anyone who says, "You seem to have..." whatever they think you may have. An unqualified diagnosis is worse than no diagnosis at all. Good luck!

thank you, i'll go and ask my doctor about that as soon as my insurance is renewed.

i think i was misleading, my mother and i have a good relationship, i think. we just have a routine that doesn't really involve talking about anything this serious. we have our morning coffee (separately, she enjoys her peace time) then i have school and she has work. then when i'm home she talks about work while i lay on the couch (i like to think it helps her cope (she hates her job.).). then i have homework, followed by some free time that i use to catch up on music (i like making themed playlists (though i hardly ever go back to listen through them.).). then i go to sleep and the day repeats.

due to troubles registering for this school year, i may be finishing school online. if i do get registered in (physical) school then i'll look into getting an assessment.

special interests?? i'm not really sure what makes any one interest special.

You're welcome!

What I mean by "special interest": Something that you are especially interested in.

I'm glad you get along with your mother,and that you have a harmonious relationship.

Gee Kortie, that's a nice tangent you've gone off on!

An autism diagnosis might not be in your medical records. If it was done by a specialist outside of your usual clinic, it might not be found unless you know the specialist's name. Or, it might be in school records.

Anyway, good luck to you.

Let us work backwards on this one. First your mom indicated that you were diagnosed with autism then she said aphasia. So the definition of Aphasia is:

Aphasia is a disorder that results from damage to portions of the brain that are responsible for language. For most people, these areas are on the left side of the brain. Aphasia usually occurs suddenly, often following a stroke or head injury, but it may also develop slowly, as the result of a brain tumor or a progressive neurological disease. The disorder impairs the expression and understanding of language as well as reading and writing. Aphasia may co-occur with speech disorders, such as dysarthria or apraxia of speech, which also result from brain damage.

So the relevant questions are:
Do you have a major speech disorder and is it reflected in your reading and writing abilities?
Did you have a major brain injury when you were very young or something else that could produce this disorder?

So to answer the first question, you appear to be fairly capable in written communications at present. So I suspect that you do not have Aphasia. But I am no way near an expert. Also since you said that your diagnosis was done at age 4, what drove the diagnosis. Were you a non-verbal at 4 and she was concerned why you were not talking.
Nonverbal autism is a subset of autism where the subject is unable to speak. While most autistic children eventually begin to speak, there is a significant minority who will remain nonverbal.
At the age of 4 it might be difficult for a professional to determine if a child was autistic or was suffering from aphasia.

Now onto the second question. Before the age of 4 did you have a major head injury or stroke, or brain tumor?

So I suspect that even if you were able to get your hands on the diagnosis conducted at age 4, it might not really answer your question. And that you should seek a current diagnosis.

thank you for answering so thoroughly, i don't currently have a speech disorder (unless you want to count a stutter that has made itself known a couple times.) though i didn't speak until i was five. so yes, i was nonverbal and that primarily drove my mom to get the diagnosis (possibly completely irrelevant, but i also used to arrange the vhs tapes at our house in a straight line from the tv to the other end of the house, and if she swapped any of the tapes i would pick them all up and restart. I don't remember this, but my family does, guess it used to drive them crazy ha.)

as far as i know, i have never had a serious head injury, stroke, or brain tumor.

One of the traits of Aspies (High Functioning Autistics) is "obsessed with order (an innate need to make order out of apparent chaos)".

The funny thing is: "aphasia" used to be a catch-all diagnosis for children who had no speech by a certain age.

The term "aphasia" has a totally different meaning today; the disordered speech must have been caused by some sort of brain insult like a TIA or a full-throttle stroke.

I doubt it very much that you were diagnosed with "aphasia" in the old sense of the term---unless that doctor came straight from the 1950s. I really wonder if there was some sort of oxygen deprivation at birth (which happens very frequently with all sorts of disorders).

I didn't speak until I was 5 1/2 years old myself---back in 1966. Back then, I wasn't diagnosed with aphasia. I was diagnosed with autism and with "brain injury."

In reference to your mother--all I wanted to emphasize is that it's great that you have a good relationship with your mother.