Aspies For Freedom

I have written a letter to Elliot House, Centre for Communication Disorders, based in Bromley, Kent in pursuit of assessment for AS.

I was going to post the letter here, but it runs to 3 sides of A4 and so might be a bit long.


I make no mention of online tests or their scores, as that could I think, go against me if they think that I have already made up my mind or think that I 'know too much'.

The letter introduces me, of course, then gives an explanation of why I might have AS or at least AS Traits. It then goes on to give an overview of my childhood and it's details, then covers my life to date on social, professional and academic points, then asks them to get in touch with me.

If people think otherwise, I can always change my mind, but I did not want to clutter up the forums with stuff unnecessarily.

Do you think it would be wiser to leave the information about yourself to present within the setting of a private consultation with a professional person? What do you need to put into this letter? I fear that if you put all of this stuff in a letter it may not be covered by the rules of doctor-patient confidentiality, while if you present this stuff in a letter or verbally to a doctor or psychologist during a consultation, I believe they should be obliged to protect your privacy by keeping that private.

I did think about about those issues, but I also realised that even if the data were not covered by confidentiality rules, thre is every reason to believe that a professional would not needlessly disclose the information to third parties.

I also considered the possibility of including too much information, which is why I left quite a bit out and mentioned that for the sake of brevity, I had withheld quite a lot of information.

My principal concern was that I would not 'get the ear' of a qualified clinician, due to obstacles such as ignorant GP's in deprived areas not having the knowledge or the inclination to stretch beyond their usual confines.

At least having written this letter to a clinician who has experience of AS in Adults, I can be reasonably sure of a better response (even if it is a referral back to a GP who has to guard his budget above all else), than if I had gone into a strange Doctor's office where I could confidently expect a dismissive 'brush off'.

I also wrote to my former Local Authority Care people in search of old records on me so that could help too.