Onwards to the ADOS

It's a slow multi-step approach to diagnosis of autism. This does not really cause a problem, we are still more than early enough for timely intervention, and the multi agency approach has evolved over time and allows a number of observations and diagnostic interviews to feed into the final assessment.

Received a letter in the post today:

Thank you for your referral to the community paediatric team. This referral was discussed together with all the avalable information from both home and school in our multi disciplinary community paediatric meeting.

It was agreed [the child] will be offered an appointment in the child developmental clinic in due course."

What this means is that in a very short time (compared to some) we will have moved from raising our concerns (and had them validated) to the final paediatrician-led ADOS which, so far as I know will lead to diagnosis.

So far, my money is on Pervasive Developmental Disorder - Not Otherwise Specified or "not autism".

The way he is currently improving I'd even dare to hope that it's just delayed onset of language and he's just lazy like his Dad.