I'm going in to be diagnosed soon, what can I expect?

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I get really anxious when I have to go into a situation and I don't know what to expect. So I thought I'd try to remove some anxiety by asking some questions.

What will it be like? Will it be mostly just talking about the symptoms I've noticed? What kind of questions will they ask me? Am I going to be given some kind of test?

i don't know how it works for adults, but for my i completed an ADI (autism diagnostic interview). it took about 2 1/2 hours. they asked me all sort of questions about my sons history and any behaviors that were of concern. then my son and the docs did the ADOS, where they interact with him in a controlled setting, to see how is is socially.

i was being evaluated for 3 1/2 hours the first time, taking all kinds of tests, physical and school like tests. i also had to give all the doctors i saw my child reports from when i was in schools and they basically agreed, yep. worst case of arseburgers that went misdiagnosed as a kid in the west

Thank you for the replies, they help a lot. I have another question. Are my parents going to have to answer any questions about any symptoms they noticed when I was a child? Am I going to be there to remind them of different things? Because I was talking with my mom the other day and I asked her if she remembered how fixated I was on insects when I was a child and she said she'd actually forgotten all about that till I brought it up. But then I've always had the best memory in the family next to my sister- I'll remember some detail of a trip we took and my parents will look at me like I'm insane till my sister goes "Oh yeah, you're right" or "I remember that." I'm worried my parents will leave some important things out and I'll get misdiagnosed.

I never had any tests given to me for both of my diagnoses.

I was asked questions and I answered them the only way I knew how, know how to; which was obviously the way that someone with an ASD will exhibit.

They might want to talk to your parents about that sort of stuff, at least they did when I was diagnosed at 15 or so. They handed my parents a sheet of paper with a bunch of questions they either checked off answers too or wrote on. I don't remember there being any time when I sat in the same room with my parents and got asked questions at the same time, it was mostly separate.

I have the same problem! I said to my mum the other day, "Remember when I was about 6 doing that music show and we were told to march, and I was marching with my left arm going forward at the same time as my left leg, but it felt fine to me and the music teacher told me I was doing it wrong and it looked bizarre?"
Mum: "no, no, can't remember that"
Me: "and then after that I realised I didn't swing my arms properly when I walked like everyone else, so I studied other people to learn how to do it"
Mum: "oh, nope, never noticed anything, didn't realise".



I don't think I'll ever get a diagnosis. At the moment I've been told I should have counselling cos they think I'm just lacking in confidence.

It might be a reason why it's harder to diagnose us when we get older. Because when they ask our parents for symptoms they can't remember and they rely more on what the parents say about that time in our lives then us. Plus we learn ways to cope so by the time we finally go in for a diagnosis, it's not as noticable as it was a few years back.

When they talk to parents I dont think they are too interested in getting all small details but a large focus may be on how you interacted with other people and kids when you was little. The questions they will ask your parents are fairly simple structured questions and get them to elaborate with examples so they dont miss any of the important things they need to diagnose.