It Finally Happened :)

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Congratulations for having completed an important step in a journey towards self-discovery and self-understanding.

Just curious – what did your testing process consist of?

Including the eight-week wait to get in for my intake appointment, the entire process took exactly four months and one day. After the initial "why do you think you have autism" interview, I went in once a week for two-hour tests that consisted of the WAIS-IV (IQ test), the WIAT-III (reading/writing/math test) (though this was because I was simultaneously being tested for dyscalculia, which I don't have, yay!), and the ADOS-2 Module 4 (autism observation in which you are surreptitiously "probed" to see if you will respond in an autistic manner to certain social presses), which took about an hour to complete. I also took several self-reports about depression, anxiety, and psychological functioning. My mom and I were both given the BASC-2, which was a 70+ question likert-scale report on specific behaviours that indicated if any functional abnormalities were present. My mom was also given a several page history report to fill out that covered my social, emotional, functional and medical history from birth to present (note; I don't think most adults would be given these two tests as the age range for them only goes up to 25.)

It took five weeks from the time I took the last test, the ADOS, to the time my report was drawn up and I was called in to discuss the results. Total testing time was about 5 hours in-office and a few more outside when I did the self-reports. My results consultation took about an hour, and the examiner went through all the numerical results of my tests and pointed out where my general strengths and weaknesses were (like most aspies, I was very scattered: my verbal IQ is 134 and my performance IQ is 94, subtest scores ranging from the 99.9th percentile to the 16th.)

Explaining each of the tests in detail would take more time than I have right now, but if anyone is interested in knowing what they're like, I'll describe them

I'm happy that you have finally got confirmation

Thanks, StarTrekker!

The diagnosis process as you describe it sounds different from what I was told it would be like here. I will only have one appointment in roughly seven months and get the result in a small conversation afterwards (also in papers form by letter from what I was told) - should that one appointment give not all too clear results there might be a second appointment though not more.
I was told that it will be a questionnaire and observation of social behaviour and some talking about childhood.
I even forgot to ask if an IQ test would be part of it, it's something I'd be interested in knowing just for fun only though I would not really want to take one... the mere thought of it makes me nervous as I doubt it is in any way representative of intelligence while casting a "label" on me that doesn't serve any purpose from my point of view unlike an AS diagnosis that might get me into support groups and special therapies or alike.

Congrats! I totally felt the same way about finally getting my diagnosis! It was a significant out-of-pocket expense (we chose not to submit it to insurance), but worth every single penny!

Congrats for your dx, StarTrekker, and thank you for the description of the process. I guess mine was similar, but in my case a formal ADI-R interview was involved on part of my parents. It's not an important difference, though, as the features were more or less the same.

Thanks for the info. I am a bit interested in learning more about the ADOS. My evaluation didn't include that (but did include a bunch of other tests).

I just received my official diagnosis today - ASD and ADD. What an empowering feeling!
ln

StarTrekker: Woohoo!! !! Congratulations!

Lynswim: Congratulations and welcome to Wrong Planet. You're gonna love it here.

I've gotten a verbal dx -- the doctor I talked to confirmed that she believes that I'm on the spectrum, based on a 2-hour evaluation. I go for testing on May 9th to make it official.

Congratulations Lynswim good luck Webalina, I hope it all goes the way you hope!

Rocket123, the ADOS is broken into four modules depending on your age and verbal ability. As a fully verbally functioning adult with no IQ deficits, I took module 4. It looked at my speech abnormalities/idiosyncratic use of language, conversation, emphatic and descriptive gestures, eye contact, use of facial expressions, nonverbal communication, shared enjoyment in interaction, understanding of empathy and my/others' roles in relationships, responsibility, quality of social overtures and responses, amount of reciprocal social communication, imagination/creativity, unusual sensory behaviours, hand, finger and other complex mannerisms, expressed interest in highly restricted or unusual topics, and compulsions and rituals. For module 4, the "autism spectrum" diagnostic cutoff is 6 and the "autism" diagnostic cutoff is 10. I scored a 13. Scores are different for each module. Here is a link that describes the behaviours in each category with a score of 0 being normal, 1 being slightly abnormal, and 2 being significantly abnormal.

http://ndar.nih.gov/ndarpublicweb/DataS ... os4_201201

My test started out with me "telling a story from a book." It was a wordless picture book called "Tuesday" about flying frogs (it's on youtube) and I had to tell about what was happening in the story. According to my report, my explanation was "very literal, a description of exactly what was depicted with little elaboration," meaning that I basically just described the pictures without the story component. I was then asked to describe what was occurring in a cartoon drawing of the U.S covered in various landmarks and people. Did a great job describing the landmarks, including their respective states, which were not on the picture, but made virtually no mention of the people.

The next part tested my capacity for imagination, and I was asked to describe the steps involved in brushing one's teeth, complete with pantomiming the use of an imaginary toothbrush and sink. I also had to tell a story using random objects in ways they weren't designed for. I told the story of George the popsicle stick sleeping in his playing card bed with his dollhouse candle flashlight when he heard a noise near his wooden block door, so he went downstairs to see Mr. Paper Circle breaking into his house. Apparently I have "good, but limited" imagination.

After that I was asked a series of questions, conversation/interview style about various topics, such as what I think the point of marriage and relationships is, how it feels when I'm happy/sad/angry/annoyed, whether or not I think I do things that annoy people, what friends are and what my roles as a friend is, etc. I thought it was a standard therapy question-answer type thing, so I answered the questions, and that was it. According to the report, I have "low reciprocal communication; answered questions appropriately but depended on examiner to carry the conversation." Had I been aware she was expecting it to be a conversation and not an interview, I probably would have done a better job... though I suppose most NTs would have treated it as a conversation even if it were an interview, which is the point. Throughout the questioning, I managed to get a few special-interest-related answers in there, and yeah, I sort of knew they were looking for that, but the times I brought them up were perfect opportunities to do so, and I couldn't help but mention them; it's hard-wired in me to bring up topics of special interest whenever the conversation provides a gap for them

The interview was quite revealing of problems I'd previously been unaware of, such as my propensity to use "odd words or phrases", my "flat tone of voice" (I never thought that was a problem, but apparently it is), and my "low reciprocity" (again, probably would have done better if the examiner had been more explicit.) Overall, I quite enjoyed it.

One more thing, the ADOS is scored as you're taking it, so there was an observer in the room as well, taking notes. It was also video taped to be looked at later.

Anyway, sorry for the long post, but I hope that helps some

Enjoy
Welcome to Wrong Planet.

I value your information. Two things make me wondering. One is that I scored much lower on the ADOS, just below the cutoff for ASD, if I recall well. The other is why they didn't give me the detailed descriptions of the test results (so I feel a bit envy of that). The only exception was the WAIS, which I managed to transcribe. I may have floundered less afterwards, if I had them. I think I may have shown a behavior and/or mental state on the sessions during and after diagnosing that they thought it would be better to withhold the detailed information, or maybe I just wasn't cooperative (because of my dissatisfaction in the diagnostic "label"), so they ignored my request.

Congratulations!

Thank you for sharing. It is quite interesting learning about how people are tested.

Congratulations! Welcome to the aspie club.