Anxious parent

Sometimes a clinic letter Assessment report The written report you get at the end of an assessment. You are entitled to your own copy, and you can ask for factual mistakes to be put right. Read the full definition of Assessment report or referral referral When a professional passes your child on to a specialist team for assessment or treatment. A GP, school or health visitor can usually make one. Read the full definition of referral response suggests that a child's difficulties come from the parent's anxiety rather than from the child. There is no clinical definition behind this. It is a judgement, and it is one that falls hardest on mothers and on parents of girls, whose children are more likely to hold things together in public and be missed.

Two things can be true at once. You can be anxious, because you are worried about your child, and your child can still have real, unmet needs. One does not cancel the other. Research and charity work on autistic girls in particular shows how often real needs were missed or misdiagnosed for years while families kept raising them.

If this happens to you, you do not have to accept it as the final word. Ask for your concerns to be recorded in your child's notes, ask what assessment has ruled out an explanation in the child, and keep your own record of what you see at home. Specific examples, written down with dates, are much harder to wave away than worry.