Hi Guys --
I wrote this up on WrongPlanet today and am pasting the same post here:
Hi Everyone -- I'm posting on my recent experience with an evaluation on Skye with Tania Marshall.
I'm a woman in my late 30s with a healthy dislike for therapists. They tend to say I'm "emotionally unavailable" and that I am expressing myself "well"...even when I'm complaining that I have difficulty articulating what I mean. They tend to gaslight me (
The Gas-lighting of Women and Girls on the Autism Spectrum | seventhvoice). It's not pleasant.
I've read EVERYTHING I can find on people like me: twice-exceptional, gifted, adult women with ASD. That last one is tricky, but I have taught myself everything I can from online sources, books, and PubMed. I knew I likely had ASD but I was dreading paying several thousand dollars to have a team of therapists attempt to misunderstand me.
I wasn't sure about Tania Marshall's online service. A therapist I was seeing (who could not diagnose ASD but who suspected it) advised against seeking this kind of evaluation. He caused me a lot of harm, so I decided to ignore him on this.
What sold me on Tanya was not the low cost (a tenth of what I would pay in the US system): it was that she has experience with adult women on the spectrum. My mother was evaluated at Duke Hospital as part of a study (she is not on the spectrum) and received the usual battery of tests...many of which were designed for children. Simply put, I had no faith in the current US diagnostic system or its tools as they pertain to adult women. You are welcome to disagree with me there, but that's my stance.
Tania evaluated me based on:
-- two four-hour discussions with me on Skype.
-- a five-page account I wrote of my life and why I think I am on the spectrum
-- emails from my mother and husband on my strengths and challenges
-- my RAADS-R results (self-administered)
-- my artwork, such as it is (to evaluate "talents")
She said she looks for the DSM-V criteria and also for "themes" she has commonly seen among women with ASD. She did not list them all for me, but did say that feeling rejected socially, being shy and withdrawn, thinking too much, and having a strong sense of justice -- all from an early age and throughout her lifetime -- are the common themes among ASD women and which she saw in me. Also, sensory issues. This is where the artwork comes in, too: people on the spectrum tend to have "talents," usually in art, science, or math. I focused on learning languages, so my artwork was pretty crappy.
Unlike other therapists, I found she tended to accept what I said at face value without having a hidden agenda. I am used to feeling "managed" by therapists -- manipulated really -- and I didn't get this sense at all. I was able to say and react naturally without her misunderstanding me. This is exactly why I wanted to be evaluated by someone familiar with women on the spectrum: I did not want to have to explain my body language or reactions. I didn't have to, and that was nice. I was able to relax and let down my guard.
One negative is that she wasn't able to evaluate eye contact or my stimming. About a half hour into the conversations, my muscles in my legs and arms began contracting and I began moving my hands. I knew she couldn't see this, so I told her about it. Again, some people may want the evaluator to be able to see body language more clearly. I was fine with this method. I told her that I had studied eye contact, so we didn't think it was important to evaluate.
One bias I've heard (and had myself) is that these kinds of evaluations can be slanted toward accepting all comers as being on the spectrum: diagnosis mills or some such. My mind was put at ease when Tania told me that she sees clients who are not on the spectrum, but who have similar challenges because they are gifted or twice exceptional, or who have ADHD. She said that not everyone who comes to her for evaluation has ASD, although many are on the neurodiverse spectrum.
She did evaluate me as having ASD in the end. Please let me know if you have any questions or otherwise want to talk about the process.
I told her I would be writing about this on WrongPlanet, and she asked me to forward this information along:
A link on her website that directs people to professionals in a variety of countries who work with females and/or are knowledgeable about females on the Spectrum:
Female ASC Professionals - Tania Marshall | Female Aspergers | Autism Spectrum
And a page on the female gender bias, discussing why women with ASD are often missed or misdiagnosed:
Webinar: The female autism conundrum —
