Diagnostics and support for Neurodivergent people in Croatia

Hello from Croatia!

My name is Dunja Dejanović, I’m a clinical psychologist at the Special hospital for children with neurorisk and motor difficulties in Zagreb. In my spare time, I provide diagnostics and counseling to neurodiverse clients at Center Coralina, together with my colleague Maja Bonačić. Both of us also volunteer with the "ASK" Initiative and Association (Initiative for autism and other neurodiversity, self-representation and the culture of diversity).

At our jobs in public health services, and in our activism, we are engaged in representing, and advocating for, people with disabilities. Recently, we have been focusing our efforts on advancing the recognition of (neuro)diversity. In Croatia there’s only a small number of specialists who really understand neurodiversity. This results in underreporting of cases and long waiting lists.

Those specialists are also the ones supporting the community through lectures, gatherings, counseling, picnics, support groups for adolescents and adults; all mostly on a volunteer basis. We are asking for your support, for autism donation, so we can continue these efforts, and expand them, by making the assessments, diagnostics and support more accessible for autistic people and people with other neurodiversity.

As it stands, an official psychological assessment is a necessity for parents and adults who are dealing with neurodiversity. They need it to get access to essential treatments, to exercise their right to social services and to obtain support from the preschool, school or public health systems. All institutions require a "real" diagnosis, before granting any kind of support.

In addition, the last decade has seen a growing need for diagnostics of autism in the adult population. The diagnostic criteria have been improved and expanded, and autism is now more widely diagnosed around worldwide. However, many adults in Croatia have received no diagnosis yet, or were misdiagnosed and have never received proper support during their lives. This results in a significantly increased risk of suicide and comorbid psychiatric disorders in autistic people, especially women and minorities.

The first chunk of your donations would go to education and materials for the necessary diagnostic tools. We have already gathered most of them through our own means, but we are still missing a few. With the rest of the money, we want to provide a complete assessment for as many clients as possible, especially those with less means. We’d like to collect money to see at least 40 clients.

The funded money will go to the following (basics):

• ADOS-2 – education (Naklada Slap) for one person – €1659.04 - until the 14th of April
• WAIS-IV-HR- Wechsler Adults Intelligence Scale (Naklada Slap) – education for two specialists and materials – 2092,39 €
• WMS-IV-HR -Wechsler Memory Scale® Fourth Edition– (Naklada Slap) – education for two specialists (2 x 331,81 € = 663,62 €) and materials (1.394,91 €) – 2058,53 €
• MMPI-2-RF- Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory- Restructured form (Naklada Slap) - education for two specialists and materials - 752,4 €
• psychological assessment and counseling for 40 children, adolescents and adults (developmental assessment, neuropsychological assessment, personality tests and a written report cost in total about € 200-250) - €8,000
• ADOS-2 materials (Naklada Slap) – 3443,83 € - not a necessity in the beginning

Everything in excess of the total amount will continuously go to diagnostics, assessments and counseling for those of lesser means.

Thank you in advance for autism donation in the name of the ND community of Croatia!