Does diagnosis require an interview with your parents?

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From what I've read so far about diagnosis of adults, this is unclear. Some psychiatrists require a conversation with someone who knew the patient as a child in order to diagnose, but others say that this is optional. I think it would be unethical to require an adult to involve a relative or other acquaintance in their diagnosis because this would be a violation of privacy.

Has anyone been diagnosed as an adult without parental involvement? Does anyone know anything about this subject in general?

I am not sure. I was diagnosed at age 16, almost 12 years ago. It probably required my parents because I was still a minor.

Tim

I am glad that they did (at my husband's eval) because if I weren't there to mention things, they never, ever would've come out on his own. It was shocking to me the way he answered some of the questions because they were so counter to what I was actually observing. I'm sure the opposite would occur at my eval as we both think the other has more quirks than the we do ourselves.

I'm not diagnosed, but I'm not sure that interviewing my parents would help. My father views my AS traits (the bad ones, anyway) as bad behaviour and laziness. Whenever I point out an AS trait to my mother, she says "I always thought that was just you being you!". I like my mother's approach better, she is not so fixated on being "normal". She has some of my traits but to a lesser degree, and her social anxiety is worse than mine.

I'd think that they need information about your early life to differentiate between HFA and AS.

My word and recollections were just fine; no parents were needed. I am 34.

Not for me it wasnt.

I think it was recommended, but since my parents remembered more about my earlier childhood than I did, I think their input helped me get the diagnosis.

An 'informant' was required at my diagnosis.

The informant had to be someone that knew and observed the patient ('client') during their first few years so although strictly speaking it doesn't have to be a parent, a parent is the obvious choice for most families. It could have been an older sibling, aunt or uncle or close family friend.

They had to fill in a questionnaire beforehand and attend the diagnostic session.

This took place at CLASS, Cambridge, UK.

I'm guessing that my psychologist spoke with my mom, at least over the phone. It does seem like they are ignoring my privacy rights as a 36 year old patient. I don't mind at all, though. It has been an enormous help for my mom to know that my perception levels are totally different from hers. Before that, she never gave validity to any of the problems that I mentioned to her. It sure beats having some psychiatrist making a quack-job diagnosis with an ulterior intention of treating it with pharmaceuticals.

I don't think my mother would be helpful in such a case because she doesn't know about many things from my life. I prefer to hide them from her.

Thanks for all the info. I'm slightly nervous about this part of the diagnostic process because I'd like to keep it private for now, especially where family is concerned. I'm going back for a "formal" diagnosis in one month. Fortunately, there are psychiatric records from my whole childhood, so they'll probably be able to tell if it's AS or HFA.

Sorry I messed up the poll! It was my first one. I meant to have "No" as an option, but I didn't submit it right.

My parents are long dead, and I had no brothers, sisters, or close relatives. However, now that I've become more familiar with the topic, I am certain that my parents were more autistic than I am. However, we were poor, so we didn't get any kind of diagnosis back in the old days.

My diagnosis was done in a special needs skool so therefore me parents were not involved da only ppl were there was me psychiatrist me teacher n learnin support assistant.

My mom is dead, and she would have been the one to ask. Since I have such an excellent visual memory, I can remember things that happened from the time I was in a crib.. so that made it a lot easier.