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Please contact us using the enquiry form to start the self-referral process for a child Autism assessment.  Alternatively, you can email us with any queries at autismunpicked@gmail.com.  We will contact you by email to arrange a free 15 minute initial telephone consultation. 

 

If you decide to go ahead with an assessment, this is completed in two stages:  

Stage 1 - Screening (£200)

The payment for screening is payable on returning your screening forms to us.  You will be invoiced for this when we send you the screening documents. 

• This early stage of the assessment is to determine why you, your child, their school or others think your child might be Autistic.  Full assessments can be costly for some families and therefore we offer a screening appointment to avoid payment for a full assessment if it is not required.  This means that the assessment does not need to progress after stage 1 if Autism is not indicated at that point and this is something we will discuss together with you. 

 

• We will send you a screening questionnaire to complete on behalf of your child and a questionnaire for school/education setting to complete (if applicable). This will help us to determine whether a full assessment for Autism is required given the experiences described.  We will also consider alternative or additional explanations, such as ADHD if this is relevant so we can give you a full picture of our thoughts at this stage. At the end of this stage you are under no obligation to proceed to stage 2 of the assessment for your child. We will discuss with you whether you wish to proceed to a full Autism assessment at this stage, however input can end here if you wish. This stage does not include a report or letter.

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*Please note, we send the screening questionnaires via email and they are password protected.  We would ask you to complete these on Microsoft Word or another method via a computer, laptop or tablet. If this would not be possible for you, please let us know so we can discuss other options for sharing forms if needed. 

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Stage 2 - Full assessment (£2000)

The payment for full assessment is payable 48 hours before your developmental history appointment (details below).  You will be invoiced for this when we send you the appointment dates. 

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If you would like to proceed to a full assessment of your child after stage 1, the assessment will proceed as follows:

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• Questionnaires - We will send you some more specific questionnaires about your child’s behaviours, social and emotional understanding and sensory needs to gain a more detailed picture of your child’s strengths and difficulties.

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• Developmental History - We will invite parents to a telephone (or video) appointment where we undertake a clinical interview that holds in mind the diagnostic criteria for Autism with a core focus on understanding your child's development, family history, past and current concerns. Depending on how much information we obtain during the initial screening appointment, this interview can take up to 2 hours to complete. This assessment is informed by the gold standard assessment called ADI-R.  However, we have adapted this in keeping with up to date understandings of autism and to allow us to ask about wider things such as cultural differences. 

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• Additional reports - We will  ask to see any previous relevant reports you might have such as from Educational Psychology, Speech and Language or Occupational Therapy or from previous Autism/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) assessments.

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• Child/young person-based assessment -  We will invite your child to attend a face to face appointment at one of our clinic bases in South Sheffield or North Derbyshire (click here for further details). This one-to-one interaction is a gold standard assessment called the ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule - Second Edition) and will be delivered by a trained clinician. Your child will be engaged in a range of tasks over a period of approximately 1-hour to allow the clinician to observe how they typically interact and communicate with someone unfamiliar. It should not be upsetting in any way for your child to do this and it is important your child understands this is not a test. We will often ask some extra questions in addition to the standardised assessment so your child gets chance to share more about their experiences. 

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• School observation - For some assessments, we may observe your child in school and arrange discussion with their class teacher(s) and/or school SENCO.  For most assessments, this is not needed as we have enough information from the appointments described above.  However, it can be helpful for some children if we need more information or if the child found it hard to engage in the assessment.  Decisions about what is required will be made on a case by case basis and discussed with you.  School observation will not incur any extra cost.  

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• Multidisciplinary team review - The team will review all collected information about your child to discuss the presence or absence of autistic traits, whether a different diagnosis might be more appropriate or whether further assessment is required to make a decision.*

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• Feedback appointment - Once the team have made a decision about whether or not your child fulfills diagnostic criteria, you will be invited to attend a telephone or video appointment so the outcome of the assessment can be shared.   You child may also wish to attend this if appropriate.

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• Final report -  You will be sent a detailed report of the assessment which will include all aspects of data gathering, our findings and recommendations.

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• Additional letter - If you receive a diagnosis, we will also provide a summary ‘covering letter’ in addition to your report summarising assessment, the diagnostic outcome and recommendations.  If you need to seek support from other services or make them aware of your child's diagnosis, many people prefer to share this additional letter rather than their full report which contains more personal information.  However, this is entirely your choice.

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Total assessment fee: please note that the total cost of a full assessment is £2200.

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We are able to offer post-diagnostic support if this is needed for parents or young people at an extra cost.  We would discuss this with you at the time for a decision to be made. 

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