hi my son is going to be assessed soon for autism, adhd, add, aspergers sydrome and schitzorphrenia and i'm just wondering if anyone knows what these assessments are like so we can be prepared, please. if anyone has an idea please can you reply.

thank you
jen

can no one help me out on this???

Sorry, I have no children and have never been "assesed" myself but I find myself thinking, "Oh, my, bless this child and bless the medical team to find out what is really causing problems in this young life and this family." Your Avatar says so much. Hope you find a rainbow to go with all that rain. There has to be one out there somewhere. Remember that the ability to see a rainbow depends entirely upon you perspective. Good luck and bless you all.

my brother has aspergers sydrome, its not that bad really, i mean it's kind of hard because he has trouble listening and if we get angry with him he will become really upset, he sometimes hits himself other times he just lies on the floor. he is also very independant and some times takes things to seriously. if your son does have this, then be gentle with him when explaining things. if you have to repeat yourself several times then don't get angry. if he does something wrong, exsplain to him what he did wrong and that it's alright. well thats all the help i can give you for now, i hope it helps!


me: blah blah dramatic speech blah
someone: *sniff* that touched my heart!

to the best of my knowledge, and i only spent a very short amount of time with kids and mental health before i specialised, when it comes to children they have to be very careful with assessments.
They try to create the most comfortable environment for the child while they ask questions, watch them with different kinds of play and with different kinds of tasks, how long it takes and if they do things in a certain way and how they react when things don't go as they wished.
I'm not sure about schizophrenia but with the others they can pick up trends by doing the above. Whether there are other things involved i don't know as i said my experience is quite limited. They cannot do the same things to test kids as they can adults and i truly don't remember them doing anything particularly traumatic, afterall children will not co-operate if they feel unsafe or threatened in any way.
I hope all goes well for you and your family.
Do let us know if it was all ok won't you.
Take care and stay positive.

Jen, Have you learned anything?
Keep us posted.
Staying positive for your outcome.

I used to work in childcare and once signs of any of the above were noted we would organise testing, it is mostly just a proffessional interacting and watching, nothing to intrusive i dont think...
I cant imagine how scary it must be to have to go through it with your own child, it was hard enough to watch a child that i had cared for and such a worry. Try not to be too nervous though because your son will pick up on that and it might scare him and change his behaviour making it harder to get a correct diagnosis. I would assume something must be up or you wouldnt be having these tests are but just remember no matter what the outcome, if you have a diagnosis and information on how to deal with it life will become a little less stressfull and overtime it will be routine and normal. It not the greatest thing to have to deal with it but once you know how to control/deal with it things will be much better.
Good luck, keep us updated.