Can I bring this to my Autism Diagnosis appointment?

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JonathanCampbell99
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03 May 2016, 2:21 am

Will someone read this and tell me whether it's appropriate to bring to the appointment, I haven't got the appointment yet but I'm going to expand the notes and add more to it if I need to.
This was supposed to be going to the Primary Care Mental Health Nurse but I forgot about it, it doesn't matter because I have been referred anyway.

I have had many problems throughout life, when I was born, I had two small bleeds in my brain (Intraventricular haemorrhage), this has caused problems with co-ordination, and I find it very hard to ride a bicycle due to not being able to balance on the bike properly, I have problems with spatial awareness, I also have a weakness down the left side of my body, it affects my arms and legs and I have reduced muscle because of it, physical activities are things I hate because my co-ordination and balance difficulties make it difficult to do things such as play basketball, football and many others, I have retinopathy of prematurity which means my sight is quite limited, I also have had laser surgery to correct my vision and it has helped quite a bit, all throughout my education I have required one-to-one support due to my vision, to be honest I’ve always felt special because I feel I don’t fit in with normal people and these problems are taking their toll on me, I’m feeling very depressed because I wish I could be normal for once.

I have problems with starting a conversation as I want to start one but my selective mutism means it’s really difficult to do so, even topics to talk about can be difficult as I don’t know what to talk about due to having a very limited range of interests.
I have been accused of being rude without meaning to, so this can create problems because I will come across as rude without even thinking about what I said, I understand metaphors, but sarcasm and jokes are very difficult to understand, especially if they are directed at me, I get so confused and I will take things too literally, I have done this a few times and people have said to me that I don’t understand sarcasm, I remember a week ago, my learning support worker told me to stand outside which I did, but what I didn’t realise was that she was being sarcastic, another example is when she was saying about me telling the student support officer that she’s really mean to me but she was joking about this, of course I said “But you’re not”, I didn’t realise she knew that she was joking but I didn’t pick up on it at all. I have had problems with making friends for 10/11 years now, it got worse when I left secondary school as I only had one friend and this still is the case now, I wouldn’t really consider her to be my friend as we don’t talk much to each other because I have found it extremely hard to discuss appropriate topics of conservation with her and she hangs about with other classmates, this leads me to go into our LRC and use the computers as I feel left out.


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Yigeren
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03 May 2016, 3:00 am

I think it's appropriate, and likely helpful, but hard to read. I'm not sure that matters at an evaluation, though.

If you have problems remembering what you need to talk about, or what you want to say, it is probably a good idea to bring it.



mournerx
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03 May 2016, 4:45 am

Hey!

I brought notes to my assessment.

I think you could maybe sort your information into different categories. For example, a subheading for 'communication difficulties', 'sensory issues', 'social imagination'. Whatever feels useful to you really.

I think it could help you think of more things to include. If you, like me, are an associative thinker, categories and structure could be helpful.

The more information you bring to your assessment, the better.


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03 May 2016, 5:28 am

Definitely bring that with you. I gave them pages and pages of notes on myself and they said that those notes were extremely helpful to them. The more you can tell them about yourself the better.


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