ASD ASSESSMENTS

[Warrior-1]

Hi my daughter had her ASD assessment this week. And I can't get the book Tuesday the one about the flying frogs out of my mind. What are they looking for when your child has to tell a story from this book that has no words only pictures. Because my child was looking at the pictures and she was describing what the frogs were doing on each page. Then when I had a look at the book I noticed on one of the pages there was a turtle and on a few other pages there was times and dates that my child didn't mention .This is where I'm confused would an autistic child point out these fine details. I'm convinced it would depend on the child not if they have ASD or not. How do they tell from this book if you've got ASD or not. If someone could explain this please I'm so confused about this book.

[Hidden]

With the caveat that I’m not medically qualified. The book is used as part of the ADOS (autism diagnostic observation schedule) on the basis that children with an ASD will give very factual descriptions and explanations of what’s on the pages, whereas neurotypical children will generally create much more elaborate backstories for what’s occurring, and give far more detail. My understanding is that it’s essentially assessing the child’s use of imagination, including their social imagination and ability to empathise, as well as language use: children on the spectrum usually have impaired ability to use their imaginations compared to their peers, difficulty empathising - putting themselves in another person’s or character’s shoes - and often far less use of expressive language. That’s why play with toys is often repetitive, even for children that are relatively high functioning: my almost 15 yo daughter is academically very able, and officially has an Asperger’s diagnosis (she was diagnosed a number of years ago), but would re-enact the same scenarios with her toys over and over. When she did the ADOS shortly before her 10th birthday, she really struggled to do anything more than factually describe the scene on the page, even when prompted to describe what she thought characters might be thinking or feeling. This would be considered consistent with someone experiencing ASD typical difficulties.

[Bee-bop]

I have not heard of this book or seen it and guess it is just a way to see how children react to it to see if a child shows ASD traits when reading it. It is a little like colour blindness tests-unless you are colour blind you will see things typical to usual vision.