LIFE Feelin an ou is crip
With waiting lists autism diagnose soaring, Lydia Veljanovski me neurodivergent who wish they’d learned why the ‘different’ earlier
An autism diagnosis can be life-changing, helping a neurodivergent child understand why they struggle with aspects of school, friendship and their home life. While, for adults it can provide a huge sense of relief and insight into years of burnout, sensory overload and meltdowns.
Yet waiting lists for autism diagnoses are soaring with a staggering 187,000 people waiting for an NHS assessment in England – a 22 per cent increase on last year.
But these delays in diagnosis can mean a life of difficulty for people with autism, like TV personality Christine Mcguinness, who has spoken about her own diagnosis at 33, saying it helped her to understand “why I am the way I am”.
TV and radio presenter Melanie Sykes also described her relief at discovering she was autistic at the age of 51.
“I am wired a completely different way and I’m only just understanding it,” she said recently.
“Where I used to think ‘what’s wrong with me?’ Now I know it’s everything that’s right with me.”
Autism is a neurological disorder on a spectrum of severity which affects how people interact with others, communicate and learn.
A diagnosis helps people to access the tools they need to cope, according to Mel
Merritt, Head of
Policy and
Campaigns at the
National Autistic Society.
“An autism assessment can be the first step to understanding people’s needs and although they shouldn’t be, people are often told they can’t get support without a diagnosis,” she says.
The British Medical Association estimates that 700,000 people in the UK have a diagnosis of autism, with one in 100 being children.
But there are many more out there, of all ages, who are undiagnosed.
We spoke to three people who were only assessed as adults, all of whom say they wish it had happened sooner.
I now realise that I often took things the wrong way. I take things very literally