Initial assessment

[dekra]

Hi everyone,

 

My son is 4 in two weeks time and has his inital assessment by what I believe will be a multi-disciplinary team 3 weeks after that.

 

Can anyone give me an idea of what to expect in the initial assessment please? I realise they can take many months to come to a dx but will they say to me at the time, "yes there are signs you are correct it might be asd of some form, we will do more testing/assessments" or will they stay tight lipped and sit on the fence until they are prepared to give a definative dx?

[Lynden]

It depends on who is assessing is the answer.

 

For my son, initial assessments involved us being seen by a paediatrician who did say to us it was likely autism but we would have to have more assessments before a full diagnosis. He was only 15 months old at the time but he was and still is quite severely autistic with severe learning difficulties. We did access physio/SALT etc during that time. After 6 months or so we spent a full week in the assessment centre where he spent 2 hours per day in their developmental nursery so they could get a real idea of his issues. We also saw all the relevant professionals - educational psychologist, salt, OT, physio, clinical psychologist and paediatrician. At the end of that week we had a multidisciplinary meeting and got our formal diagnosis at two and two months. We were lucky though as diagnosis that young isn't common, although the severity of his issues made it much easier to clearly diagnose him.

 

Lynne

[dekra]

Thanks Lynne. That must have been a tough time for you realising there was a problem and going through the diagnosis process so young.

 

With F we were lucky enough to be able to enjoy his time as a baby and small toddler with only faint concerns on his development that we just put down to normal fluctuations in childrens development (e.g He crawled and was cruising the furniture at 7 months but didn't walk until 16 months and his lack of verbal skills just seemed like he was a quiet, "chilled" child). The differences started to appear more and more obvious after about 1 year old and the gulf has just grown wider. Part of me still partly expects to go to this assessment and be told the same as everyone has been telling me for years (family and friends who only see him infrequently love to give their opinions) and he's just "a little behind". Then my common sense kicks in, he has too many issues and is obviously not a "normal" little boy for his age, if he does not have asd of some sort then there is still something going on - hopefully whatever it is the doctors etc can guide us to a dx that will help us understand and and plan for him so that he gets the right support.

 

BTW - What does NT mean please? I know from the context it's used what it is but was just after the literal translation.

 

One other thing! My daughter is now 10 months old and so far has not displayed any signs of the issues that F has had but it might be early yet. How common is it for siblings to be on the spectrum even if it's different dx's? From various posts there seem to be a lot of people with more than 1 child affected.

[Lynden]

NT means neurotypical - basically a typically developing child. It wasn't actually too bad for us because we were able to get help really quickly. He was a really placid locked in little boy - not challenging in terms of behaviour at that age other than he lived in his own little bubble. He does have hypotonia and hypermobile joints too so he didn't sit/crawl till late and didn't walk until he was gone 3.

 

I'm not sure of the % chance of siblings being affected - it's different everywhere I look. It isn't uncommon for families to have more than one sibling on the family but it is also quite possible to have only one affected. My daughter is 9 now and is showing no signs of being on the spectrum at all (and believe me, I do look for it! lol).

 

Lynne

[Karen A]

http://www.nice.org.uk/nicemedia/live/11826/52736/52736.pdf

 

Hi.

I thought this might be useful.Although it is still at the draft stage it may give you some ideas regarding what assessment should involve.

 

Karen.

[dekra]

A good read thank you Karen.

[philipo]

I've 4 kids,eldest two twins 23 are obviously 'dyslexic' but ok socially,youngest lad is unaffected 14.second youngest daughter is clearly as/hfa 20.The biology/inheritence isn't a certainty at all but i do worry that many childrens 'behavoural' issues(which by definition includes EQUALY parenting issues) are being fudged by misdiagnosis and a readyiness to resort to chemicals,i.e. a nt/social projection of normalisation of behaviour.A small but significant part I beleive is the inability of teachers to have any time to work with individual kids,asd/as/autisim or not that would lead to making 'labels' to cope with school/pupil discipline.

[dekra]

Post just arrived with the appointment letter for Finn's assessment. He is seeing the consultant paediatrician at the Tier 2 Communication Clinic. Just as case of wait and see now.

[Karen A]

Post just arrived with the appointment letter for Finn's assessment. He is seeing the consultant paediatrician at the Tier 2 Communication Clinic. Just as case of wait and see now.

 

Do you have to wait long ?

Just wondered.

 

Karen.

[dekra]

Do you have to wait long ?

Just wondered.

 

Karen.

 

The appointment is 24th Aug, that has been since April when the inital referal was made but it took until June for the referal to be resent to the right people. On the scale of things not too bad but longer than I had hoped. I've know about the date for the appointment for a couple of weeks already but was just waiting on the letter to make it "offical". Interesting to see the clinic name and know he's not just been flung in a general clinic that might have had to pass him elsewhere.

Edited August 4, 2011 by dekra