What to expect at his assessment

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Good morning,

My 12 year old son has an appointment for an assessment next week. I have been wanting this for many years, but his father (my ex-husband) is extremely resistant to it. He does not want our son to be "labelled" and has even gone so far as to say that a diagnosis of Aspergers would lead him to thinking he is mentally inferior and spiral him down to killing himself. Quite frankly I'm pretty sure my ex is probably on the spectrum as well, but that's beside the point.

My question revolves around the fact that from all my research, everything I read leads me to believe that there is a lot involved (we sent in questionnaires from teachers and his counselor, etc), I have many notes written down to talk over with the doctor, etc. My ex seems to think that there is one test, the MMPI, and that is all he will grudgingly consent to have done. Again, I am not sure where he is doing his research because every response I get from him about this makes me scratch my head as it seems far off track from my research.

Can someone that knows please give me more information about what goes on?

Hi,

The ADOS is the gold standard for autism tests. (Or it was when we underwent the process, but I think it still is) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autism_Di ... n_Schedule

We had ours done by the school district and there was also an IQ tests and questionnaires. I don't know much about the MMPI so I looked it up on Wikipedia and I don't really understand why this is the test your ex wants. Maybe he is hoping it won't show anything?

Does your state or custody agreement require both of your consent for anything that is assessed. I can't imagine that they can do a very good job of assessing your son, if that is the case.

I am not certain how he came to the conclusion that this is *the* test. He has a lot of misinformation, unfortunately.
He thinks that the two counselors my son and I tried out are psychologists (they're not). This is a quote from a recent e-mail he sent me:
"If he thinks he is mentally inferior to others, it will affect his ego and self-esteem. He will become depressed, and possibly suicidal. He could spiral down. He’s going through the roughest period in his entire life in the next few years in regards to his self-esteem. He won’t take into account that he is only mildly effected. This could kill him. I think waiting a few years will allow him to become more mature, and cope better with the implications of a diagnosis. I am absolutely confident that if he’s diagnosed with it he will not be as successful in life than otherwise."


We do have shared custody but quite frankly I'm sick and tired of him bullying me. I'm at the point now that I'm just going to get it done and if he wants to take me to court, he can. He gave consent and it's even in a mediation document, so if he wants to say it was only consent for a test that may or may not be involved, so be it. I'm going to get the help my son and I need. I'll take my chances if he actually decides to get past his own issues and tries to take me to court over it.

I had to google the MMPI too. It seems like a test to determine mental illness? I guess your husband thinks ASD is a mental illness?

I don't know where you live, and the tests for diagnosis vary a little state to state (I think). But, my son did not have an MMPI test. They gave him an ADOS test, had me fill out some questionnaires, did a parent interview, did an IQ test, and some other kind of observational assessments. I can't remember everything. They actually did do some mental illness assessment also, but I don't know what test it was.

While the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) was quite commonly used years ago to diagnose certain psychological characteristics, it seems to have fallen out of favor for most diagnosticians ... except as a tool to exclude those characteristics within an autism diagnosis. In other words, if a client shows anxiety and obsession using the MMPI, they might be diagnosed as co-morbids unrelated to autism, or might be subsumed within an overall autism diagnosis.

As others have written, the ADOS-2 tests are very good in diagnosing autism. But, they aren't as good in determining some of autism's co-morbids and characteristics. The MMPI could help make these determinations, but, I suspect that newer multiphasic tests would be more accurate. The MMPI was published in 1943 and has been criticized as being calibrated with Minnesota farmers of the 1930s and 1940s.