So I’ve been working in my head on a tentative, unified theory of autism, giftedness, and extraneous diagnoses like NVLD (that’s nonverbal learning disorder, plebes) and hyperlexia. I’m working on writing it up–there’s a lot, and a lot to reference. I’m certainly not the first person to notice the overlap between these things, and there’s especially a lot of stuff out there trying to relate NVLD to the spectrum (or, sometimes, separate Asperger’s from the spectrum and group with NVLD, a stupid move of stupidness).

Yeah. So.

My therapist lady has reccomended another lady who is part of the larger collective where she works who is a psychologist and does a fair amount of stuff with kids through adults on the spectrum, specifically diagnostic and reccomendation-y type stuff. I’m pretty interested in having that piece of paper (especially one with extra words on it, like “Takes tests by herself, preferably with a computer,” because that group exam shit did not go over well in Melbourne–I seriously wonder how much higher my test scores could have been on end of grade/level tests in school had I been allowed to do them on my own), so this is of interest to me. The major downside is that I have to pay out of pocket and then talk the insurance into reimbursing me. The upside is that her out of pocket fee is not exhorbitant, compared to other psychologists who offer testing (also, she is not in DC, just in Harrisonburg–that place I go anyway).

I knew that this psych lady had read the bullshit report put out by the first psych I saw, so I emailed her to ask if she’d read a self-report as well. She agreed, and I gave her an eight and a half page condensed history, reasons for wanting a diagnosis, and explanation of how I meet the criteria for Asperger’s. I noted that our primary concern will probably be in working out the difference between giftedness and autism. She seemed to agree, and reccomended we do a real, honest to fsm IQ test (I have ethical issues with them, see the footnote) and also some autism testing–and she’d like me to bring in what I’ve already done, like the Aspie Quiz and AQ.

Fun! I like tests! I like official pieces of paper!