Autism assessment for GS

My niece waited for 5 years of primary school to get her son assessed. The SENCO was useless, his class teacher was useless and year after year they fobbed her off. All those years were totally wasted.

In his last year at primary school she paid privately (instead of updating their car) about £2000 for a full assessment. It was extremely thorough and confirmed he was on the autistic spectrum. She then did battle with the LEA because she knew he would never cope in mainstream school. After lots of toing and froing and form filling they finally agreed to fund his education at a lovely private school for autistic kids.

From day one he took to it like a duck to water and is thriving there. Bear in mind that every day for him at primary school was a battle and he learned nothing. He is like a changed boy and can stay there until he leaves school.

One DGS didn’t get a diagnosis
until he was in 6th form. 2nd DGS had a diagnosis before the end of primary school. Fuseta I hope your DGS is successful in getting the correct diagnosis AND the support he needs. My DD had to argue every time they did a “review”.

My DiL also paid for a private assessment of 10 yr old knowing the waiting list.. Done in person, done very well indeed. she ID'd a problem very early on and DGS didn't try and "mask"substantially.

CAMHS are appallingly underfunded and understaffed so its a postcode lottery. When they say the can't help any further, its not necessarily that the child doesn't need help, its because the help isn't there. Not an excuse: a reason.

CAMHS are dealing daily with suicidal children and the most urgent cases tend to get resources, just like in AMH (Adult Mental Health)

This is really sad. A few months after lockdown started both my grandchildren, aged 11 and 6 started suffering severe anxiety problems. The 11 year old has now not attended school for three years. My daughter contacted CAMHS who told her the waiting list for help was a long one. They paid for a private child psychologist to help the children and both were diagnosed with autism. When CAMHS did get involved they were useless. Try getting a phobic, anxious 11 year old to chat to a complete stranger on video! She has now been discharged by them, who say they cant help any further. The mental health of our children has been seriously damaged by lockdown.

When we had the assessment done, there were many parts to it. There was a speech and language lady, a hearing test, a call to the school and a computer questionnaire. In the Speech and Language Assessment, the lady said she wasn't sure that she could see signs of ASD but as she had video'd the assessment, I asked her to reassess. As she was testing, she hadn't noticed stimming behaviours or other things but when she reviewed the video, she changed her mind.
Hopefully, the assessor will have been watching beyond the answers.

Is this assessmemt being organised through the school or is this a private assessment? I have never heard of assessments conducted in this way as they are in several stages and are complex, which is why they take a long time to conduct, therefore the delay. Has you daughter not even had a face to face consultation with the class teacher and Senco?

I asked my Ed Psych daughter about this. She did say they the do not like these on-line interviews, but are often. Particularly with private ones, where the interviewer may even be in different country to the person being assessed.

Used as little as possible although the lack of experienced Ed Psychs, the incredible increase in the number of youngsters requiring assessment and the lack of money has brought these into being . She also pointed out to me that over the past few years their 'real' salary has decreased enormously as they have had very little in the way of increases. They are, at present, balloting about industrial action.

Experienced people they are and know and understand
masking. I think that every area in UK has vacancies for Ed.Psychs. Real shortage of these highly trained and qualified people.

My 15 year old GS is about to have his assessment. He has been waiting for at least 5 years. He hates being put on the spot with questions, so is extremely good at giving the answer he thinks will close down the questioning so we are also quite concerned about this. However he has a full report from school and my DD has already had 2 long interviews, one face to face and another online going over his history, so I think they will be well aware of masking and will be looking out for it.

So don't worry too much, just let him be his natural self.

They should be trained to see and read through the lines

I doubt one zoom meeting is all this process entails

I remember thinking at my daughters assessment she masked so well that they wouldn't see it

They did, although as we have lots of similar traits there might have been things I didn't recognise myself

They know how to recognise masking though and they would be looking for non verbal signs that your daughter wouldn't have been able to see

They will also take into consideration mums answers as well as what the SENCO has said

Try not to worry yet, I know it's such a long road to get there

Thank you Pandapatch. I will pass this link to DD

This has not been my experience of how it works, perhaps this link from the National Autism Society may be of interest
www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/diagnosis/diagnostic-assessment/parents-and-carers

Thank you for all the useful advice. Yes I am in the UK. I will check out mumsnet and also Sendiass. Yes, this could have been a screening type interview, but if it was, he has totally blown it, unless they could see through him!!

I volunteer with a parent carer charity and this doesn’t sound like usual practice to me.

www.kids.org.uk/sendiass

Check out the SENDIASS service for your area (link above or Google them) and speak with your local branch. They will offer help and support. If you are in the U K you should also be able to find a local Parent Carer Voice. Again they should be able to signpost you to support.

The parents and class teacher/secondary school tutor should also have been given questionnaires. Also, it should involve more than one person e.g. a psychiatrist, a clinical psychologist or a speech and language therapist. Normally parents/carers or another informant would be interviewed too. One online interview to diagnose autism would not be following NICE guidelines.

Could it have been a screening type interview with a 'gatekeeper' to see whether further referral is needed? CAMHS seem to do this.

My experience of this, is that it is always done face to face, with additional evidence and input from school, parent and children's health services.
I wouldn't have thought a Zoom assessment would be appropriate.

Never heard of assessments being done in this way either, not here in Scotland anyway, and until recently, I worked for a charity catering for children with ASN, particularly autism. There is big backlog when it comes to assessments, as someone else has pointed out, but I do know someone whose child was assessed last month, and that was done face to face.

There is a huge backlog re children in UK waiting on assesments.

Look on the Sen board on
mumsnet, very up to date information.

I have never heard of an assessment being done in this way. Are you in the UK?

I think that’s called ‘masking’ where children learn to say things that they think others wish to hear from them. I don’t know where you’d go from there, but I hope someone with more experience comes along to offer ideas.