How was your diagnosis?

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Which professionals evaluated you, who diagnosed you? What tests did you do

I was tested for Autism by a Neuropsychologist.
I did about 12 hours of tests, so many that I can't name them all.

I was recently tested for ADHD as well, by a Neuropsychologist, a Neuropsychiatrist, and a Psychometrist.
It was about 20 hours of testing. Some of the tests were similar to the ASD tests but there were no repeats.

Well I was only 7-8 at the time so all I remember is being forced to attend all these appointments and seeing all these child psychiatrists, then all of a sudden I was no longer Joe90, I was the diagnosis.

Both times I was evaluated by psychologists who worked with children who have developmental disorders. I was specifically tested for both ADHD and autism each time, as I also needed my ADHD reevaluated to qualify for medication.

I don't remember how the first evaluation went since I was 6 or 7. I was 15 or 16 during my second one though, so I remember more. I went to to meet the lady and get a screening done, and then she agreed it seemed like I might have ASD so I went for the actual evaluation a month or so later.

For four or so hours she had me do a lot of tasks. They included making up a story about random objects she gave me, reading a passage and then summarizing the passage in a verbal presentation to her, telling her what certain phrases such as "don't count your chickens before they hatch" mean, completing questionnaires about my social experiences and my issues, and being asked specifics about how I've interacted with other people throughout my life and how other people have reacted to me. She also had my mother fill out similar questionnaires and asked her questions about how I was like as a child.

She also had me perform an IQ test, which involved even more tasks and might have been what some of those previous tasks were for, but she never gave me the results to that.

Dr. Lynda Geller with over 30 experience with Aspergers/Autism

Adult Autism Assessment
Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function
Social Responsiveness Scale, Second Addition

Structured interviews with me and my sister.

She said, "I have no problem diagnosing you with Aspergers". That statement coming from somebody with that much experience was powerful. I am pretty sure it saved me a lot of the doubting of the diagnosis many WP members talk about.

At 5th grade when I was 10, there was an observer at class. By her accounts, she noticed me. Said observer to talked to my mom and asked the teachers.

I was the first aspie she formally encountered. I would guess it was quite a treat.

My very first impression towards her is flat out apathy, annoyed at any introductions and did as I would.

So I had few assessments right after. I understood what it meant and I didn't like it -- even if I had enjoyed the activities itself, I'm fine with 'different' but didn't like the idea of being 'odd one out'.
An OT had once assessed me -- and say I don't need OT. It was fun still.

Yet we had to cut short any formal services there. Financial issues, family issues.

Somewhere along the line, delayed appointments are made.

It continued at age 14. I had various tests.
First ones were taken at the local hospital. The tests are short and more... Wordy.
I can't recall more than that. I've only able to recall it because there was a paper about those tests -- consists of simple academic and EQ tests.

Then the final one was done at the capital, which took me and my mom few days. We took trains and slept in one of her relative's house.
The very doctor who tested me is one of my country's current leading professional.

I do remember taking IQ tests and interviews.
"What would you do or say?" "What would you feel?" "What do you think?"
Make up stories, spitting words and analogies, arranging and crunching numbers, memorizing lines or lines of characters or numbers, turning images...
I can recall bits of comments about my vocabulary and visual interpretations...
Not all the details though, it takes too long for me to write it all down.

I barely slept the day before out of disregard for routine.
It lasted for hours, barely took it seriously.
Though, I had a bit fun at some bits and my mom's worried enough to bring me food in the middle of said test.

What I can also recall is being confirmed and labelled 'special', with countless thoughts echoing in my head -- as the doctor was talking to my mom about it. I cannot recall the exact words being said there, but I do recall what it looked like and the atmosphere.

Fighting and countering thoughts and feelings in my head -- one side that says it makes sense, another side says it doesn't.

One side won.



I could've simply just state the doctors' names, time and settings, name of tests taken and test results straight from the paper.

But that's not how as I'm right now would answer the question "How was my diagnosis?"

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Lose more time here - Updates at least once a week.

Two clinical psychologists interviewed me and my ex partner, both together and separately. They then discussed their findings with the rest of the multidisciplinary team before giving me the diagnosis. There were no actual tests as such but the interviews followed a set structure.

I was 4 when I got my diagnosis so because I was so young I can't really remember all the tests the doctors did, I went to a lot of therpy afterwards. It started to sink in that I was austic when I went to the specail education classes in primary school by secondry school I was fed up with going to doctors apoiments for my autism so I stopped and went to a youth group for autisic teens insted.

I've suspected for years. A few years ago a therapist that has a subspecialty in autism gave me a couple screenings and talked to my psychiatrist who refused to give a diagnosis. A lot of people even some people I didn't know very well would mention it however.

Early this year I moved to another county and the first clinicion that evaluated me said he picked up on it right away and gave me a provisional diagnosis. Then later on the psychiatrist agreed and also added ADHD.

A couple weeks ago I was inpatient for a mixed bipolar episode, and that psychiatrist said randomly "has anyone talked to you about autism?"

Sometimes I still doubt, but so many people have said something to me that it must be kinda obvious or something...

I got an adult diagnosis. I may have been lucky in that I was assessed by a very experienced expert (he looked mid 60s) or it was just that my autism was so obvious that I didn't have to jump through any hoops. Probably a bit of both.

It was complicated for me (as it seems to be in many cases here) -

When I was 20 (in college) I went to see 1 of the 2 counselors on campus since the fee of therapy was included within the school payment (so 'free'). Anyways, at the time I had just spent most of my life assuming I was chronically depressed/high anxiety/socially anxious; after several sessions with the counselor she asked me a couple of questions about how I felt about being touched when younger/did I rock back and forth. She never directly told me why she asked, but I went home for a break and talked to my parents about it. I figured out she was asking about Asperger's/autism so I had gone online to look into it more and it was uncanny how directly the generally-given 'profile' matched with my life experience. When I got back I asked her and she said yes, that was what she was essentially 'picking up' from me. I wanted a more formal diagnosis but at the time she had me take this really long (like took 2-3 hours out of my day) survey to eliminate whether it was anything besides autism (I think)? But after she 'diagnosed' me she really didn't want to talk to me about it as much as I wanted to so it became kind of difficult at that point.

Since then, I have now found a therapist in my area who specializes in working with children and adults with ASD/AS so that's been really nice. She administered the ADOS-2, the MIGDAS-2, WJCog IV, among other interview-based evaluations. After that, I was diagnosed officially (and have a report, which has been helpful). That took several sessions, I would estimate upwards of 8 hours. Fortunately, I'm still able to see her as my regular therapist since I think she's great. She also runs group meetings for adults on the spectrum, which I'm looking forward to attending now that I no longer have to feel like an imposter attending, but they've been delayed for a long time due to COVID.

A final note of interest - when I was either 4 or 5, I was taken to a psychiatrist because of my hand-flapping and other social difficulties I presented in pre-school. I guess at the time it was suggested to my parents that I might have AS or ADHD, but they never acted on this because I have a cousin who has AS (quite a bit older than me) and he presented a lot more clearly than I did in terms of traits, so it didn't seem like we had the same thing. Funnily enough, growing up and going to family get-togethers, I always related to him and his behavior, because I did the same things he did just much more privately. Now I'm one of 3 members on one side of my family who have AS/ASD (each of us from different parents).

That's my whole thing; sorry if that was too wordy for this thread, just thought I would contribute~ Thank you to everyone else for sharing your stories!