North Yorkshire families say it's taking years for children to get autism diagnosis
A new report by a former children's commissioner calls it a "nightmare process"
Families in North Yorkshire have been telling us about the battle to get their child an autism diagnosis.
Louise Alton Fletcher lives in Poppleton in York with her son Ted and says it took years for him to get a diagnosis: "Everything we were reading said 'early intervention, do things as quickly as possible', lots of the research coming out of America was 'these early interventions make such a difference' and we couldn't get them. We wanted at six months to be putting something in place, at a year to be putting something in place."
"When he was three and a little bit and we finally got that diagnosis, it was no surprise but we felt like he had missed out on years of support that he needed that would have made a big difference at that stage."
"Really it was very obvious from him being a year old, we were pretty sure he was autistic but we had to wait another two years after that for it to be confirmed."
"He has serious communication and interaction difficulties, he is pretty much non verbal and he didn't really receive any speech and language support in particular for years."
"Nightmare process"
In a new report a former children's commissioner says thousands of children are struggling without the support they need while parents "battle their way through a nightmare process" amid lengthy waits for autism assessments.
Anne Longfield noted the "terrible and damaging consequences" for children's mental health as well as their educational opportunities as backlogs build up in the system.
The first report from her Centre for Young Lives, in partnership with the Child of the North initiative, contains a series of recommendations on changes needed to support autistic children.
Among these is a call for support to be provided in schools and nurseries before a child receives a formal diagnosis, to avoid them "failing while waiting".
The report stated: "A major barrier in our existing systems is the perceived need for a medical diagnosis of autism before any child can receive support."
The report added: "From an educational perspective, this lack of equitable provision can result in children 'failing while waiting' because of system failures."