Question about Adult Diagnosis

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Hi everyone,

I have been reading about diagnosis of AS in adults and the information I have says that adult diagnosis is difficult and that there is a lot of emphasis on talking to people who know you well, especially people who knew you as a child, which is essential for the diagnosis.

My question is, what if you don't have anyone like this? The only person I have access to who knew me as a child is my mother, who might be able to give information about my day-to-day life up to the age of 10 or 11. At that age she left my father and due to very bad circumstances I did not really see her again until I was over 18. During that time I lived with my father who is now estranged from my mother and I (he refuses to communicate, and besides which, he has severe mental problems of his own and inflicted a great deal of emotional abuse on me, so he would not be a candidate for accurate information). My grandparents have all passed on. The little other family I have is a long distance away and they are not people I know well. I have had very few friends in my life and none who would be able to give information about my life. I do not have any friends at this time. I have had a very isolated life.

All I will really have is my own account of my life and perhaps my mother's input for the first part of it if she is willing to give it. If the input of others about childhood is so important, does anyone know what a psychologist might do in this situation? Is it possible they will refuse to come to a conclusion due to lack of evidence? I am in the UK and I know it is already hard to access treatment as an adult here so I am concerned about this.

Thank you.

You and your mother should be enough. For childhood history, what they want to know is how you behaved as a young child to ascertain that you had autistic traits from an early age. They also want to know your developmental milestones, like what delays you might have had in language and motor skills, which are not required for AS diagnosis but do get asked, but of course, you will have many delays and differences in social development if you have AS.

If you are happy to have your mother involved,then that will be enough.

I am in the UK and didn't want my parents involved in my diagnosis. I provided school reports and some information from a general conversation with my mother. I received an ASD diagnosis even though "early history may be lacking" because there was "substantial other evidence supporting a diagnosis". Apparently my ASD is very obvious to those who know about these things (I thought I wasn't that obvious so that was a surprise) so there was no question.

I was formally diagnosed at age 29, couple weeks ago.

Here's the chronology:

1. Saw general practitioner at walk-in clinic for assistance with depression/anxiety. GP asked about my social life. I informed her that such a thing does not exist for me and never has. social phobias, personality disorders, development disorders were presented as possibilities.
2. referred to psych assessment services at local hospital. did initial assessment there with psychiatrist and a resident in training. They diagnosed my depression but did not feel comfortable diagnosing anything else without neuropsychological testing.
3. referred to clinical psychologist for testing. tested for several things with specific attention paid to possibility of Schizoid PD (I learned this afterwards). Testing was a total of about 7 hours worth of all manner of tests split between two days. I can post the list if you're interested. They did not request to speak to either of my parents.
4. Clinical psychologist completed her report and gave me the full rundown of results; Aspergers diagnosis given, and OCD as well (surprise!). She explained her thought process in regards to my test results and her impressions compared against the DSM criteria. She determined that I had no language delay based on my own account of my schooling. This was never really in question for me. The only thing she had to skip due to lack of information was the point about lack of showing/sharing interests with others. Since I met the criteria sufficiently even without that information, she said she felt comfortable skipping it.

So, it's not explicitly required, and you mother's account should certainly be sufficient if they wish to be that thorough.

I'm interested in what tests they give. I'll be going in for testing in October...

My mother helped me get a diagnosis. Im 20ish.

They need to know your childhood behaviors so your mother would be great.

Here's the list. Keep in mind that some of these are due to specific issues I had complained about that are not necessarily autism related. So the OCD, depression, and anxiety ones aren't necessarily things you would see in every assessment done by my specific clinical psychologist. From what little I know about the clinical side of testing for autism in adults, it sounds pretty standard for them to administer an IQ test. It is also likely that there will be a facial and emotional recognition component, both auditory and visual. For example, they play an audio clip, and you are asked to choose a face from a page of several pictures of faces to indicate which one you think most closely reflects the audio clip. Things like that. Here:

-Semi-structured interview
-Schizoid Personality Disorder Module of the Structured Clinical Interview for DSM-IV Axis II Personality Disorder (SCID-II) & SCID-II Personality Questionairre

-Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI)
-Beck Depression Inventory (BDI-II)
-Clark-Beck Obsessive-Compulsive Inventory (CBOCI)
-Inventory of Interpersonal Problems (IIP-64)
-Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory - III (MCMI-III)
-Personality Assessment Interview (PAI)
-Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory (SPAI)
-Test of Malingering Memory (TOMM)
-Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - 4th Edition (WAIS-IV), including the Advanced Clinical Solutions subscales (Word choice/Effort, Test of Premorbid Functioning, Social Cognition, & Executive Functions)


My only advice to anyone doing this sort of neuropsych testing is to be honest. Do not try to spin your answers to make you look better or worse than you are. They are several controls in play with a lot of these tests that look for answer consistency, consistency of effort, potential deception. I was surprised to see how many components of the tests were geared towards that when I read my results report.

Thank you, MrStewart.