Should you get retested for autism?

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I was diagnosed via a educational psychologist over about 3 sessions for about an hour. About 12 years prior I was thought to have Nvld, and a very low iq. As many I am pretty sure I have dyslexia and auditory processing disorder and probably the maths dyslexia. I’ve seen neuropsychiatrists, and audiologists. Should I start from scratch? Can they make a mistake? Or is the testing quite advanced and idiot proof? I have moderate Autism.

Do you think the Autism diagnosis might be wrong?

Mistakes are possible. Some folk on WP have encountered them.

But correct diagnoses are also possible!

I would certainly advise anyone who has doubts as to whether they have been diagnosed with a particular condition within the field of psychiatry to ask for a re-assessment where possible.

You should note that objective tests for detecting a biomarker associated with Autism in diagnostic screening as they would in the case for other areas of medicine are not widely available, so the real validity of such diagnostic screenings are highly questionable. This includes the ADOS-2 test used as the gold standard of Autism assessment.

In my previous post, I stated that I was previously misdiagnosed by a consensus of autism specialists as a child. As an adult, I demonstrated that I had no traits of Autism where no other condition was identified.

Mistakes are therefore completely possible and can go either way (missed diagnosis or misdiagnosis) and would advise that you get re-assessed if you believe you have any doubts regarding a diagnosis.

Hmmm psychiatrists usually just diagnose things that can be treated with drugs. Educational psychologists are the ones who usually do the testing for dyslexia,autism,adhd,iq. I was tested in 04, then I requested a retest in 2016 for iq, and then I got referral to an educational psychologist to test for Aspergers but she wrote autism. I got diagnosed with Nvld in 04. I probably have it, but I think my other disorders are more burdensome to my overall functioning than autism. Such as auditory processing disorder and dyslexia . But I’m not sure, I’m not a specialist.

If you’ve been misdiagnosed then go to a different clinic. They are unlikely to want to go against what another dr has diagnosed creates tension and office politics/ bullying. Not pleasant work environment.

Eh I don’t think it’s the sole explanation of why I have an iq of 85. Explains sensitivity.

It seems Autism is an umbrella for so much. I would bet that I could qualify as mildly to severely ADHD, OCD, CAPD (auditory), RSD (rejection), etc. if we looked at all of them. If I had my way (and money) I would do so, for fun.

As you may know or have experienced, IQ "drops" with poor conditions. IQ can "rise" with better conditions. I have a young friend who I instinctually know is brilliant who is being hampered by a poor environment for her severe ADHD and so her IQ is testing low (under 100). Add processing delays and kablooey. I absolutely think processing delays need to be decoupled from IQ to some degree. If 98 people will never get to the solution, but 1 person will in 1 minute and 1 person will in 1 month ---- ummm, I'm in support of the "delayed" one too. I'm one of those folks who has extremely lumpy (or whatever it's called) skills. I do have fast processing visually but slow processing otherwise and my retention is horrible for "mundane" facts. So I am at once learning disabled and "very smart" (in some ways). I have a range of at least 50 pts between my top and bottom subscores. A variation of human. I got my diagnosis two years ago and am still digesting the implications.

Good luck with your decision!

Thank for your reply, where I had a certain degree of difficulty at times in following some of your messages.

However, it is clear your response is against the subjective nature of the diagnostic process and many other flaws in the psychiatry where your views are completely rational and understandable.

Such flaws are not present in what I refer to as the real medicines i.e when testing for cancer, you would perform an objective test such as a CT scan to indicate the presence of malignant cells.

This allows such diagnoses to be verified as real illnesses where there is no factual evidence other than the opinion of the psychiatrist to diagnoses conditions such as ADHD.

1. It is the case that the use of drugs have been overly used in to treat psychiatric conditions such as the case of ADHD. This is based on the brain chemical imbalance myth which has not been scientifically proven yet promoted as it pushes the the sales of the drugs of the multi-billion dollar pharmaceutical companies.

Your claim therefore that these drugs such conditions can be treated are therefore not correct as there was never a brain chemical imbalance. However, these drugs actually cause a brain chemical imbalance and cause a worsening in the condition over the long term which allow the further sales of drugs.

Psychiatry has after all never cured a condition. For reference look at how Schizophrenia has a better long-term prognosis in the developing world where there is an absence of anti-psychotics.

Of course if you are currently taking medication I would ask for medical advice for tapering off them due to the withdrawal effects.

2. I think the problem in getting the correct diagnosis is the serious overlap between such diagnoses alongside the lack of objective testing. The answer is we don't know enough about how the brain works to fully assess the neurodiverse condition and there is no evidence that a psychiatrist has the special insight into the human condition by observing human behaviours.

I think you are reading into this matter too much expecting to find the answers which psychiatry wrongly claims to explain. I'd rather see yourself as individual rather than a label and see how I can proceed to help you to lead a fulfilling life. Intelligence Quotient (IQ) tests are also meaningless where I can clearly see you are an intelligent individual who understands the complex intricacies of a highly flawed psychiatric model.

I believe that Australia currently use ICD-10 rather than DSM 5 as in USA. ICD-10 recognises Asperger's syndrome (code - F84.5) as a distinct condition.

Do you know whether or not you developed language skills normally when you were very young? Was this documented one way or the other for purposes of the assessment? Or, was it not documented either way?

I know I had trouble saying certain words like specifically, sausage,yoghurt. But I don’t know if my development was normal or if I met the age appropriate milestones at the right time.

I know that people have gotten diagnosed in public schools. But they didn’t test me in a private catholic school. Which is a bit weird.