Do you have apprehensions about facing an adult autism diagnosis or taking an assessment? Whether you’re considering a formal diagnostic assessment for yourself or your loved one, it’s bound to make you feel anxious and overwhelmed. However, by learning how to prepare for an autism assessment, you can ensure a more stress-free process.
An autism assessment can help you gain clarity and the support needed to make the journey ahead smoother. A formal diagnosis and assessment of autism can help you better understand your or your loved one’s personality and behaviours.
This assessment, carried out by a qualified autism assessment clinician, can help you or your loved one receive reasonable accommodations in different aspects of life. It’ll also help access autism-specific support like occupational therapy, mental health support and peer-to-peer support.
In this article, we discuss a few ways to prepare for an autism assessment.
1. Understanding Autism Assessments
Autism assessments are conducted to help understand you or a family member better, especially regarding specific traits or behaviours. If you’re wondering how to prepare for an autism assessment, it’s helpful to know that there are no right or wrong answers in such assessments. These are used to simply evaluate you or your loved one for a potential diagnosis and can give you much-needed clarity.
Diagnosis and assessment in autism are carried out by qualified clinicians who have the skills and experience to complete the diagnostic process.
They often use questionnaires, interviews with family members, examine developmental history and direct observations. This helps them conclude whether the person in question fits the specified clinical criteria for autism.
At Connect to Autism, we offer private online autism assessments and ADHD screenings. Our services are recognised by the NHS, and we’ve been actively supporting autistic individuals and their families for over 20 years. If you’re unsure about what an autism assessment entails, use our 30-minute free consultation. To learn more about our services, call us on 07958 449402 today.
2. Personal and Developmental History
Since most autism assessments require examining personal and developmental history, it’ll be helpful for you to collate all relevant information. Doing this ahead of time can help you give the required information when asked and help you understand how to prepare for the autism assessment better.
However, please do not worry if you do not have any specific documentation.
This can help remove the stress from your autism assessment and make for a smoother experience. Personal history, including early childhood developmental milestones, can help your autism clinician to analyse if signs of autism were present in your childhood.
Since some of the common traits associated with autism can be masked, they’d also look at any difficulties you experienced in school with social integration of behaviour, repetitive behaviours and your family history. This approach can lead to a more thorough diagnosis and assessment of autism. As a result, you can understand your needs better and make informed choices, moving forward.
3. List of Concerns and Specific Behaviours
It’s not an easy journey to arrive at the point of needing a diagnosis and assessment for autism. While this may have been an unnerving and emotional experience, it’s important to make note of your concerns. This can include all personal observations you’ve made and specific behavioural patterns that prompted you to explore how to prepare for an autism assessment.
You could also include clear examples of such behaviours or describe how you experienced them, including signs of burnout. For example, you could describe your experience of sensory sensitivities, which include being oversensitive or under sensitive to certain external stimuli. This includes finding certain noises disturbing, getting away from bright lights (sensory avoidance), or disliking certain tastes or textures.
Other autistic traits include communication challenges, difficulty comprehending social cues, having set routines or struggling with flexibility. Sharing such vital information can help your autism assessment team better cater to your specific needs.
4. Have a Support Team in Place
Diagnostic assessments are designed to give your autism assessment team as much insight, information, and understanding as possible of your unique traits, skills, and challenges. While these can be pretty detailed on their own, it’s important to involve key people in your life to support your diagnosis and assessment of autism. This makes for a more holistic assessment.
If you’re wondering how to prepare for an autism assessment, consider asking people in your close circle some questions about how they view you. This can include your parents, spouse, partner, a close friend, colleague or a carer. Their input can be valuable on your assessment forms and questionnaires.
This way, your assessors will have an opportunity to receive a well-rounded view of your personality and behaviour. It can be particularly helpful in cases where you or your loved one has been masking certain traits to adapt to everyday life in public and private.
5. Prepare Emotionally and Mentally
Learning how to prepare for an autism assessment can make a big difference in how you manage your assessment results. While being nervous about your assessment is normal, it’s important to be emotionally and mentally prepared.
This includes setting realistic expectations when it comes to your diagnosis and assessment of autism. This isn’t an exam, and you’re under no pressure. You simply have to answer questions honestly and trust your autism clinician with the rest. If you have any doubts about your assessment process, you can make a note of them to clarify them later with your team.
For a Professional Autism Diagnosis Assessment, Contact Connect to Autism
Today, there are over 700,000 autistic individuals in the UK, of whom only a small percentage have had a formal diagnostic assessment. This leads to facing considerable social barriers, making it essential to offer them the right support at the right time. A formal autism assessment can be a great first step towards receiving the support and assistance you need.
At Connect to Autism, we understand the importance of a timely diagnosis and assessment for autism to support you and your loved one’s journey. That’s why we offer private online autism assessment and ADHD screenings for adults (16+).
We offer comprehensive autism assessment services with a personalised, sensitive approach to evaluation. This includes clinical observations, standardised tests, self-reporting and interviews to provide a detailed and professional diagnosis.
Founded by acclaimed therapist Anne Marie Gallagher, we provide expert, NHS-recognised diagnosis to support autistic people and their families. Try our free 30-minute consultation today. To learn more about our services, get in touch or call us on 07958 449402.