Latest / Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD / Autism Diagnosis_ Effective Age To Diagnose YOU (Professionally)

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Autism Diagnosis_ Effective Age To Diagnose YOU (Professionally) · Aspergers & Autism Podcast [The Aspie World] AuDHD

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  In this video, I'm going to show you the effective age to
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  diagnose somebody professionally in the autism spectrum.
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  What's going on guys? My name is Dan, I have autism
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  ADHD, and I make weekly videos all about this stuff.
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  So if you're new around here and you want to consider learning
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  more about autism and ADHD, remember to hit the subscribe
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  button down below by clicking the notification bell.
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  Guys. In this video we are covering
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  everything from autism diagnosis age to something quite
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  interesting about the youngest age of people diagnosed with
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  autism. All that plus more is coming
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  right up, guys. Welcome back.
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  Now I have a lot of people asking the question, you know,
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  what is the age that somebody can be diagnosed autistic or
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  what is the age of an autism diagnosis?
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  Now, this can vary very much from person to person.
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  And, you know, some people may be diagnosed later on in life.
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  Some people may be diagnosed when they're younger.
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  But what is like a provisional age where people say, OK, well,
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  this is the age you should diagnose somebody?
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  Well, in all honesty, there really isn't a specific age.
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  However, data will show that most people will be diagnosed
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  around the age of three years old.
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  I'll get into why that is in just a moment.
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  Before I do, I just want to say there is an awesome link down
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  below in the description for anybody who is suffering with
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  mental health issues. I'm on the autism spectrum
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  because I've had this before where I've had mental health
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  issues and autism. You know, I have an autism
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  spectrum disorder, I have mental health issues and I need this to
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  be to talk to you and going to a therapist sometimes can be quite
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  difficult because you're in person and all this sort of
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  stuff. So I found an app called Better
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  Help, which is absolutely fantastic.
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  You will be assigned a therapist within 24 hours or sooner if you
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  sell it for the app and say, you know, I have specific needs in
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  autism, ADHD or anxiety, whatever, and they'll find you
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  somebody tailored to that. It's absolutely amazing.
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  You do the whole thing online. You can either talk somebody,
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  text, voice, or video wherever you feel comfortable with in the
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  comfort of your own home. Now for me as an autistic
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  person, this is golden. So please check out the link for
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  better help therapy in the description down below.
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  Here's an affiliate link. So if you do sign up, I get some
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  little bit of a benefit, but I highly recommend.
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  I've actually used this myself and I continue to use this.
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  OK, so on with the video. So why is 3 years old the
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  optimum age to diagnose a person on the autism spectrum?
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  Well, it really comes down to children and children's
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  development or typical development in children.
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  Now when people three years of age, they are coming out of the
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  learning about the world stage and just having typical toddler,
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  you know, kid behaviour when they might have aversions to
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  kind of food because they're just learning food textures for
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  the first time. They may have aversions to
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  lights and sounds and smells because it's just typically
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  trying to learn the world as as a new human being.
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  Well, when you come out of that step and then you're around 3
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  years old, maybe 3-4 years old, then you'll be able to begin,
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  you know, your journey as a person and knowing what you'd
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  like and what you don't like. Now, if you're still having
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  unusual behaviour or of like behaviour which is similar to
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  that of the autism spectrum, like extreme anxiety, you know,
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  a delay in verbal communication. Because obviously before that
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  time, you will have a verbal communication kind of slowly
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  coming along. And people on the autism
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  spectrum will have a typical development in that, you know,
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  gaggling, burbling and doing all that kind of like baby stuff
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  like cuckoos and gagas. But then obviously that then
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  develops into somewhat of a language or cohesive
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  conversation or cohesive dialogue with somebody when
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  you're about 3 or 4 years old. Now, autistic people who are
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  nonverbal will have difficulties in this area.
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  Even autistic people who are verbal, like myself, will still
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  have a delay in the speech development.
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  Now speech and language is part of communication.
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  Now, since autism is a communication condition or a
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  disorder in communication, which means that the information going
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  into an autistic person's brain and then getting translated into
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  the signals that it needs to be like somebody said something,
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  your brain registers it, then you know what they've said, then
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  you want to create something and send that back to them.
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  This is a cycle of communication which is disrupted within an
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  autism spectrum condition with a person with autism.
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  So you can see how having a child of age 3 plus is going to
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  be easier to have an autism diagnosis that professionally
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  assessed within that moment. That being said, I have heard of
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  and I personally know people who have had their children
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  diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder and they've
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  been younger than three. Actually, I'm pretty sure
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  somebody I know was diagnosed at 18 months old.
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  Now this could due to severe difficulties in certain
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  developmental conditions where if they have a very high support
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  needs autistic spectrum disorder, then that would
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  display in itself quite young because they need extra support
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  and you'd know that something was developmentally unusual in
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  that person. However, most of the autistic
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  individuals diagnosed from say, the 80s to mid 2000s would have
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  been diagnosed later on in life as adults.
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  And the reason for this is very simple.
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  So there's a scale that I kind of come up with.
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  I don't really know what I'm going to call it, but I'm
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  definitely going to publish a paper on it where when you were
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  a young person or a young child, you are learning about the
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  world. You've got to learn, you know,
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  how to see how to eat, how to walk, how to breeze, how to kind
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  of stand up for yourself, learning about regulation of
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  emotions. It's all brand new and this
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  brand new, this change from nothingness to enriching.
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  This can be overwhelming. And so people on the also the
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  spectrum super overwhelming and can really impact their ability
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  to understand the world. So life as an assisted person
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  when you're really, really young, you're learning all these
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  things from you is very difficult and hard.
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  And then life as an assisted person when you're an adult,
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  it's also hard because when you're an adult, you're trying
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  to, I've got mortgage, I have children, I have car payments,
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  I've got a job, I've got a boss, you know, I've got taxes to pay,
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  all this kind of stuff. And that's all brand new again.
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  So you're relearning stuff. There's a part in the middle of
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  the scale where you're kind of like a teenager where you've
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  learnt all the things you needed to learn as a child, as a human
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  being, you know, to breathe and to eat and stuff.
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  And then you haven't got really responsibilities of being an
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  adult. So you're just kind of coasting
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  in the middle. And so life becomes a little bit
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  more giving there. So you will see that most people
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  are autistic people are diagnosed when they're really
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  young. And most of those people were
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  diagnosed well, they're really well when they're older, right?
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  Because they're when they're past the teenagers.
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  And this is because of that scale I was telling you about.
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  Now I actually want to know, do you have autism and ADHD or just
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  autism or just ADHD? Pop in a comment down below.
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  I'd like to know who's watching now because of this specifically
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  you, you'll find a lot more autistic adults being diagnosed
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  later on in life. And I actually interviewed
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  somebody in my podcast who was diagnosed when he was 70 years
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  old and that was diagnosed professionally 70 years old
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  because she missed out, you know, all of that time where
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  she'd kind of been coasting through life.
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  And then people forget about it and say, oh, they're old and you
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  know, like they're doing their own thing and they've got that
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  going on, blah, blah, blah. And that didn't really didn't
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  help that person. And so they got to 70 years old,
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  they were diagnosed with autism. So that's really an interesting
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  kind of fact that we have this that scale where many, many,
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  many teenagers to young, young adults, like really young adults
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  who don't have as many responsibilities as more of the
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  ageing population of adults will be missed out with the awesome
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  diagnosis process. Now this to me, it is quite
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  profound because we now have target areas of, OK, we know how
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  to diagnose or we need to diagnose people between the ages
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  of three and say 11, and we know how to diagnose people between
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  the ages of kind of 25 plus, right?
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  But what we really need to specifically look at is the
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  awesome diagnosis criteria that's affecting the teenagers
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  in the middle. Now, some of the factors where
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  teenagers will be missed off is because, you know, where the
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  parents would have been like, oh, you know, little Jimmy's
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  having struggles in this area. We've continued to see some
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  assessments, but we didn't get anything, you know, solid.
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  And now he's like 1314 and he's playing on his bike and he has
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  like a friend and he plays video games and, you know, builds
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  Minecraft at the club. And so they kind of just say,
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  Oh, well, that was just him as being a kid.
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  But what they don't realize is like little jammies kind of
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  learn how to mask. And masking is a huge part of
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  autism where you learn to overcome certain social
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  situations or just pretend to fit in so that you can become
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  normal in that situation. Now, these kinds of situations
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  are very, very common where parents will be kind of like,
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  yeah, you kind of difficult as a child or have difficulties as a
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  child. And then as a young teenager,
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  you're okay and a bit odd, but you're okay.
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  And then as an adult, you kind of like reverted back to you
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  when you're a child. And this goes back to that
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  whole, you know, scale thing of something about that whole, you
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  know, there's, there's basically, I don't really have a
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  name for it yet. I'm going to do that.
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  If you have any suggestions for a name for the scale, please pop
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  in the comment down below. And also, if you're enjoying
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  this video, please give it a thumbs up.
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  It really does help me and this channel now.
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  And in terms of why this is important is because I find that
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  a lot of people will say, oh, you can't be diagnosed, you
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  know, until you're in your adulthood, but that's, you know,
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  not right. You can be diagnosed as a child.
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  Like I said, you can be diagnosed as young as three and
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  a little bit younger than that. And other people say, oh, you're
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  an adult, you can't have autism, which is again, a load of
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  kozwala. And in Britain that means a load
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  of garbage because you you can be diagnosed as an adult.
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  I was diagnosed at 26 years old. So it's not a case of, oh, only
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  children diagnosed autism or only adults.
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  It's across the board. But you will find that big gap
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  in teenagers. Now, I think that this is very
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  interesting. I think that people need to
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  really embrace what I'm saying about this whole scale thing and
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  really take that to consideration, especially if you
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  were kind of seeking A diagnosis for a child who then became a
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  teenager and you're like, OK, well, they're no longer
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  autistic. And then you want to go now and
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  say, OK, well, maybe they are. I want to reassess those
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  behaviors now. I have different types of
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  checklists and sheets available. I'm going to leave a link for
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  autism diagnosis criteria, like before having a diagnosis,
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  during having a diagnosis and after having a diagnosis, a
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  bunch of different things. They're like little download
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  PDFs. I'm going to link them in the
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  description of this video down below.
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  So just go down there and check out their free PDFs.
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  You can just click away and download them.
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  We're just super super were awesome.
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  Now guys, if you have anything to add or pop in a comment down
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  below, I'd love to know your opinion on these things and if
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  you want to watch more videos from me, definitely check out
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  this video next to me, because I think this is going to be super
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  awesome for you to get stuck into since you've watched this
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  video. OK guys, I'll see you in the
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  next one. Peace.