Appointment is set!

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Just wanted to let everyone know that today I confirmed my consultation appointment with a psychologist who specializes in Asperger's. I contacted our local branch of the Autism Society of America about a year ago, and they referred me to him.

My appointment is on Valentine's day! Hopefully this will be the first step to finally loving and accepting myself.

I'm paying for this consultation out-of-pocket, then will see whether or not I can continue based on the timeline and cost he approximates for diagnosis.

For those who went to a specialist in Asperger's, how many sessions did you have prior to arriving at a diagnosis?

Congrats. Mine is tomorrow, although it is with an adhd doctor. They also have someone else in their office who specializes in the autism spectrum.

One session at an AS specialist over here (Attwood's place). My nephew took a few at the same place.

I suppose it just depends on how you appear; it's probably easier to diagnose a prototypical adult [with AS] as the behavior is far more out of place compared to one's peers.

Congradulations.

It took me - i dunno- two or three sessions.

Mostly consisted of a bettery of aptitude tests of various kinds.

Then he interviewed my sister and my girlfriend about me.
Your parents are still availiable so they will get invited to be interviewed about you.

Nothing to be afraid of.

Whether you dx'd or not you get a thorough report on your strenghts and weaknesses printed out that can be very interesting to anyone.

Congrats!

Mine took several sessions. Initial interview (aiming at determining if we should continue the process), interview with my parents (ADI-R), interview with me (ADOS), an IQ test (WAIS-IV), and discussion of the results with me and my parents.

My dx is not Asperger's, there's more to high functioning autism than that.

Two sessions plus a result session for me. One in which he determined it was worth doing the entire evaluation, the evaluation session, and the results session. The first one he did a patient and parent interview in (and was about an hour long), the second one was lots of tests (and was 4.5 hours long).

Well, it's 10 minutes after midnight, which means today is my appointment!

I'm pretty anxious about it. In fact, I just got finished having a full on meltdown, because my boyfriend went and changed all of our plans around tonight, which compounded the fact that I was already feeling kind of anxious, and I just lost it. Usually changes in plans punch me in the gut, but I can get over it after a bit with no real damage. Not the case tonight. I could barely speak; I felt so sick and overwhelmed.

Good luck!

And I'm sorry your boyfriend changed your plans on you.

Just got back from my first appointment. It went pretty well. The psychologist is nice.

Found out that I will have 2 more sessions, my boyfriend will have a session with him and then a diagnostic session.

Total cost: $1680

Hopefully my insurance will reimburse me.

I hope it would turn out well... Are you as eager to get to the end as I have been?

I wish loving myself only cost $1700US

that would be whack

Hi Fragileclover,

Please keep us updated.
Did the psych give you any indication yet? I guess if you're proceeding with the diagnostic stuff he/she must think there's a possibility.

My first appointment is in two days...

Best, Zel.

As far as comfirming a suspicion of AS...no. However, the purpose of the first session was for me to explain my situation in my own words, particularly any behaviors or events that prompted me to contact him, so that he could make a decision as to whether or not to move forward with our sessions. So, at the least, he believes some of what I shared is indicative of something outside of the norm.

After my first appointment, he sent me home with a Multimodal Life History Questionnaire. It covers stuff like my personal and family history, as well my feelings, preferences, memories, etc.

My next appointment (this Wednesday) will be a clinical interview. I've never had one before, so I don't know what it involves, but I'll be sure to let everyone know how it goes.

Good luck with your first appointment! I was quite anxious before mine, but it wasn't so bad. I sent my psychologist a list of symptoms and self-perspectives, and he seemed to appreciate it; he skimmed through it before our first appointment, and said he would read it through entirely before our next session.

Just got back from my second session.

During this session, he focused a lot on my inability to sleep or get to sleep, my self-description of my 'mind processing faster than my mouth', and intense discomfort when I'm in a situation that I'm not interested in (I guess like boredom...I'll feel trapped and start shaking my leg/tapping my foot/biting my nails).

He wants to me look up ADHD, because he feels that some of my symptoms are relevant. He then said that I probably never considered it, since I was a very good student (near 4.0). He also said that an overwhelming majority of persons with Aspergers have ADHD as a co-morbid condition.

I'll have to look into ADHD, because he's right, I've never even considered it a possibility. Not to stereotype, but every person I've ever known that was diagnosed ADHD also had a terrible time getting along in school and completing schoolwork. I never had these issues.

He also wanted to discuss my 'bi-gendered' feelings...and those were a bit difficult to explain. Basically, I feel like I'm 50% a heterosexual female, and 50% homosexual male (on the inside, of course). I only mentioned this to him in our first appointment, because I noticed that there are a ton of folks here on WP who have the same feelings.

Anyway, my next appointment is going to be with my boyfriend. He have me a questionnaire to take home to my boyfriend before the appointment, called a BDEFS. He also gave me the same form to fill out, but mine is a self-report, whereas my boyfriend's is tailored to reporting on someone else (me). I think this questionnaire is related to executive function.

He also gave me an SLC-90-R, which just seems to be a general symptoms checklist for a bunch of things.

I'll continue to update you guys as I go. I figure it could be useful to someone else who's getting ready to start the diagnosis process.

In the mean time...for those of you with ADHD as a co-morbid...could you tell me a little about your symptoms? I'm curious as to why he thinks I might have it. Thanks!

Oh, I forgot to mention...my psychologist is incredibly receptive to me bringing him notes and my own self-reflections. He said they are very helpful.

This week, I brought him a checklist of sensory issues that I experience, based on the checklist for Sensory Processing Disorder. He seemed very thankful that I did so.

"intense discomfort when I'm in a situation that I'm not interested in (I guess like boredom...I'll feel trapped and start shaking my leg/tapping my foot/biting my nails). "

That is an ADHD sympton, but it's also very similar to stimming,,, There is a difference, but I cant really explain it well. Stimming and repetitive behaviours as a calming or stress distractor (ASD) or as a get on with it, it's my turn to butt in im impatient kinda way (ADHD).. If it's a sympton of boredom then that sounds more ADHD like..

I'm fairly certain that anyone with AS could also meet the criteria for ADHD predominately inattentive. The reverse may not be true though, ADHD-I might not also be so easily diagnosed as ASD. They could well be the same disorder in my mind. I have an ADHD-I diagnosis, but it isn't quite right..

I might be impulsive for instance, but that isn't really correct, when I'm on an interest I have to feed it,, if I've spent the past 2 days reading, is it really impulsive to go and immediately by the next two books in the series? So while I apparently have some impulsive behaviours, they are predominately related to interests OR the need to quickly escape certain situations.

If you can find a copy, " driven to distraction" is a good introduction to ADHD, check it out if you want a book to read. You won't find a single mention of.aspergers or autism in it though. There is a good ADHD community at www.adders.org, It might be good for you to check that out. ASD is rarely mentioned there though.

Jason