Dr. David Mushati (Autism Assessment In Adults)
Dr. David Mushati, Chief Clinical Officer at Melios, is a leading Consultant Clinical Psychologist specializing in neurodevelopmental conditions. In this conversation, he breaks do...
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Who are you?
My name is Dr. David Mutti. I'm the Chief Clinical Officer for LIOs. I've spent the last 24 years working in healthcare, including a significant amount of time working for the NHS. I love what I do. I'm a consultant clinical psychologist. I'm passionate about neuropsychology and neurodevelopmental conditions, and I have dedicated my life to understanding some of the conditions and helping people along the way, which has been an immense privilege.
What is the process of an autism assessment?
So screening assessments in a diagnosis is a process. So when you first start looking in to having a assessment for A DHD, you'll complete some screening questionnaires and there'll just be questions just to see how you are finding things day-to-day in relation to that kind of diagnostic criteria. That can be kind of tick boxes, it can be a general conversation with your gp. After that, then kind of thinking, okay, you know what, we're seeing some things, so actually let's move on to the full assessment. We're seeing some things, we're not quite sure what this full picture is yet. So then you move on to an assessment. An assessment is much more in depth, really trying to see, okay, is this picture A DHD or is this something else? So then with the assessment, then that's about pulling together all of the rest of those pieces. Okay, you know what? We've already got these from the screening bits. Let's see if we can kind of put all together all those edges now. And actually once that assessment's been done, what we're hoping to see then is, okay, what does this picture show? Does this picture show yes, a diagnosis of A DHD? Or does this picture maybe show something else? And that'll then obviously be your diagnosis or your non diagnosis. Depending on the outcome of that appointment, you can still get that diagnosis of A DHD without that full picture, even if there's a couple of things that's being missing. And that's just the nature of just being a human, having other things going on at one time. No one's ever only just experiencing a DHD in a vacuum. There's always lots of other things, but that's part of the digging process of having an assessment for A DHD.
Is it common to be misdiagnosed with autism?
The process of an autism assessment is varied. I think the first thing that you should expect primarily is that it is done by a qualified clinician, and it is also done in the context of a multidisciplinary team. And what that means is you have different clinicians from different disciplines going through a set of questions with you. These set of questions are usually around your background as a child growing up. And it's challenging for a lot of the adults that we come across in accessing some of this information for various reasons. So for instance, their parents may be deceased or indeed inaccessible In these cases, try and find a valued informant. So this is someone that perhaps knows you very well and has known you for a long time. This could be an aunt, uncle, or relative, or indeed a best friend or a really good colleague that perhaps has known you for a long time. And we ask questions around social interactions in the context of your childhood growing up, but also in the present time as an adult. We are curious about the challenges that you're experiencing and what has prompted you to seek a diagnosis. We discuss sensory sensitivities, and it is after we have gathered all this information that we sit down with other clinicians, have a discussion, reference a diagnostic manual such as the DSM five or the ICD 11 in order to see whether some of the traits or challenges that you're presented with exceed what might be considered a criteria for a diagnosis.