Is it usual to use children's tests for adult diagnosis?

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I was referred to an adult autism diagnosis centre in the UK after seeing my GP to say I thought I might have an ASC. I am female, age 25 at the time. I went to the initial appointment, which was a 1h discussion. Then there were some questionnaires for my parents. The next stage was a meeting with the "autism team" to decide on a diagnosis. In this, the main thing which happened was to give me what they described as children's tests. I can't remember them all (this was a few months ago) but they included:

- being given a few foam shapes and told that the person opposite me had the remaining foam pieces, then asked to put my foam pieces on to a pattern printed on paper, then told I should put all of the foam pieces on the paper and reminded who had the remaining pieces (I think the test was to see if I would ask this person for the pieces or not know what to do?)

- being given a picture book with a fantastical story illustrated in it and asked to tell them the story it depicted (I guess to see if I told it bearing in mind that from their perspective they could not see the illustrations, perhaps?)

- being shown a picture of pigs flying and asked if I knew what the phrase "when pigs fly" meant

- one of the people there told a story and used small objects (bottle top, spice container, jelly toy, feather etc.) to act it out, then asked me to tell a story/do the same using the objects (can't remember which, if they said "please can you do the same" I suppose it would be different to "please can you tell a different story using these objects" - I don't want to be misleading because I can't remember exactly)

They were very kind and I did not feel as if I was being patronized, but I did want to roll my eyes at some of the tests because I thought they were very transparent in what they were testing and seemed so basic that I would have thought many people with ASCs would not give the "autistic" response (I'm sure many adults with ASCs have learned what the pigs flying phrase means). Anyway, I don't actually know what they were testing and am not a psychologist or psychiatrist so this isn't really relevant.

My question is: is using tests for children (or tests like I have described, children's or otherwise) a usual part of diagnosing adults? (This place only diagnosed adults.)

That's incredibly strange. For the screening I did tests with a maximum age of 11 (for primary school kids), but when it came around to actually diagnosing me the testing was more... age appropriate. I've never heard of what you described before in a place that only diagnoses adults. There's far less tools for diagnosing adults, but that's not to say they don't exist. Why they don't use those instead I don't know.

Not every place is like this, but I have read a number of posts describing similar situations. Your particular "adult" diagnostic centre seems to think Autism automatically means bieng childlike.

I would try and find another place to get diagnosed.

I had to take a few diagnostic test which were designed for children, but not the ones you are describing. There just aren't a lot of tools out there right now for adult diagnosis.

Is there a delay on this? I replied a couple of minutes ago but it hasn't appeared. Am I doing something wrong? Does everyone get one of those 'captcha' code things they have to enter before they can finish?

Bloody thing's working now! I'm not writing all that out again just yet. I'll be back later!

It doesn't go through if you get one of those captcha things. I'd recommend you copy and paste any text before clicking submit.

I didn't do the one about pigs, but all the others are part of the ADOS suitable for older teens and adults. I also did some others.

I also didn't feel patronised, though I had thought I might when I'd read about it. I scored quite a bit above threshold and though it surprised me it actually did reveal difficulties I have. (The puzzle frustrated mr because the lines weren't designed so it fit exactly, I told the picture story but didn't refer to metaphors or emotions, I was very skeptical about telling the story with random objects because I didn't think they looked like the objects she was pretending they were, but did do one after it was demonstrated to me (again, without personalising it at all), etc.

Interesting - I definitely didn't notice the lines not fitting! It seems I was wrong about it being apparent what they were looking at. I wouldn't have been so sceptical about it if they hadn't mentioned they were for children.

Thank you everyone for your replies. I'd be interested to hear what anyone else has to say about it. I'm not intending to question the validity necessarily, but I found it strange and wondered if this was a normal process.

IMHO questionnaires for parents would also qualify as "children's tests".

If that's the case then a lot of my assessment was a children's test.

That part was definitely about me as a child, but the tests I did were done by me as an adult which is what I thought was strange.

Here's hoping I can post this time...

I went for an assessment with consultant psychologist on Thursday. It took 2 years and 2 months for the assessment to come through, following my initial one which indicated that I am likely to be on the spectrum.

The experience was extremely uncomfortable. I felt as if the psychologist had no interest in getting to know who I am or how I feel or why I feel sure I have AS. She only seemed to want to follow her procedure as if I was some kind of robot. I found the tests very surprising. It took until the next morning for it to dawn on me that they were meant for children, and that the psychologist was probably used to assessing children, not 55 year olds. But she is a professional, highly trained and experienced, presumably, and therefore ought to know perfectly well that anyone who's made it to 55 with AS will have learnt a lot of coping skills and behaviours to get by, unlike a child. Yet she seemed to count any reply that was 'normal' or 'neurotypical' as a point against me. It felt as if I was being interrogated from a sceptical perspective. I was glad to get out of there but very frustrated and quite annoyed to be honest.

I had taken my old school reports which I thought would be informative, as they are packed full of "he lacks concentration" "he spends more time gazing out of the window than doing his work" etc, from age 7 to age 16. She glanced through them and asked me a few questions as if I was still at the school - I left there almost 40 years ago! She then handed them back saying "I don't see any indication of ADHD there, more like obstructional resistance" [whatever that means - is it a bit of psycho-jargon?]. I was amazed and speechless at this. It felt as if my own picture of myself had been pulled apart and judged as not valid.

So to conclude this rant, I did not find the children's tests acceptable, not in this context anyway. Maybe a different psychologist would have produced an entirely different and more positive response from me. I am to be given another appointment in January, but I'm not sure its even worth going through with it.

The message I posted a few seconds ago took 6 attempts! I only quoted previous posts in the hope it might trick the system into accepting it, but I'm not sure what made it finally work. I used the audio captcha thing the last two attempts. This is very frustrating and will put me off bothering again unless I can find a way round this. I'm logged in, what more do they want?

EDIT: And of course, this one worked first time!

Technophobe, may I ask, how did you get hold of your old school reports, and are you in the UK?

I'm considering a second evaluation at a different place, but the new place asks for school reports for assessment of an adult. I'm 54.

I just contacted both my schools, one said they no longer have records for the 1960s and 70s! The other failed to reply. I'm wondering how there can be "no records" of the pupils of school just because it was 40 and 50 years ago.

Hello there. Yes I am in England. I can't help I'm afraid because I've always kept my reports (well, my Dad kept them and for some reason gave them to me some years ago).

Best of luck in tracking them down. My only advice is don't take no for an answer!

If anyone else on here can say anything about their experience of being assessed for a diagnosis of AS or HFA, and/or your thoughts on my experience, I'd be very glad to hear about it.