Child Autism Assessment - Cornwall Autism

Child and Young Person Autism Assessment

We offer a comprehensive and robust autism assessment for children aged 3 to 19 years. For preschool children who have not been seen by an NHS Paediatrician we are also able to provide a review from our Consultant Paediatrician, ensuring a comprehensive and NICE compliant assessment of your child has taken place.

Your child will be seen in clinic by one of our friendly and experienced clinicians and the parent interview can either be carried out online (our hybrid offer) or face to face depending on your preference.

Early Years

Early Years (3-5 years) autism assessment includes a Paediatric review unless your child has already been seen by a NHS Community Paediatrician.

£2295*

*£1995 if child has already been seen by a Community Paediatrician
- FREE initial screening
- Full developmental history completed online
- A thorough and friendly assessment including Paediatric review and ADOS assessment
- Contextual information gathered
- A diagnostic discussion using the DSM5 criteria for ASD
- A full diagnostic report, recommendations and signposting
- Follow up meeting to answer any questions, ensuring our clients fully understand the outcome and next steps
Hybrid

A face-to-face ADOS assessment for your child at our clinics in either Truro or Plymouth and a history taken in the comfort of your own home via video call using TEAMS.

£1995

Face-to-face and online autism assessment
- FREE initial screening
- A full developmental history completed online
- A thorough and friendly face to face assessment using the ADOS
- Contextual information gathered
- A diagnostic discussion using the DSM5 criteria for ASD
- A full diagnostic report, recommendations and signposting
- Follow up meeting to answer any questions, ensuring our clients fully understand the outcome and next steps
Face to Face

Both assessments take place at our clinical rooms either at the Health and Wellbeing Innovation Centre, Truro, or at Market Hall, Plymouth.

£2195

Full face to face autism assessment
- FREE initial screening
- Full developmental history carried out face to face in our clinic rooms
- A thorough and friendly assessment using the ADOS assessment
- Contextual information gathered
- A diagnostic discussion using the DSM5 criteria for ASD
- A full diagnostic report, recommendations and signposting
- Follow up meeting to answer any questions, ensuring our clients fully understand the outcome and next steps

About our Child and Young Person Autism Assessment Pathway:

FREE INITIAL SCREENING
- Once you have contacted us via our contact page, we will email you our parent/guardian form so you can let us know how your child presents at home. Please also send us any other reports you have about your child from health or education professionals for us to review.
- We will also email you a form to pass onto school so we can consider their observations of your child in the school setting (if your child is not in school information can be gathered from another professional who knows them).
- Once all this information is returned we will hold a screening meeting and then get in touch with you with our thoughts.
- If at this point we do not think an assessment from Cornwall Autism and Neurodevelopment is right for your child, for instance if there is not enough evidence of autism or if we feel alternative support would be in the best interests of your family we will signpost you to appropriate services, including local NHS and council support.
- If we all agree that an independent autism assessment could be helpful we will arrange a date and time that is convenient for you for the next stage of our assessment.
THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY AUTISM ASSESSMENT
- Parent/Guardian Interview We will arrange a time to meet with you either online via a secure video platform or face to face to gather information on your child’s presentation and to get a detailed developmental history. This assessment can take up to 3 hours.
- Child/Young Person assessment This will take place at our clinic room at the Health and Wellbeing Innovation Centre, Truro, or at Market Hall, Devonport, Plymouth. We will spend a few minutes initially with you all together to introduce ourselves and ask you all some general questions. We will then ask you to separate from your child and wait in the comfortable waiting area whilst one of our clinicians spends time with your child to administer the ADOS. If you are worried that your child will not be happy to spend time alone with a clinician you can stay with your child; we would just ask that you do not participate in the discussions or assessment tasks as the ADOS tool is standardised on the 1:1 interactions between clinician and young person, and it is important that we are able to see how your child engages with our clinician without the influence of other people.
- If your child is under 5 years old they may also have a review by our Consultant Paediatrician, this is often done at the same time as the ADOS.
THE MULTIDISCIPLINARY DIAGNOSTIC MEETING
- Once both assessments have taken place we will then hold multidisciplinary diagnostic discussions during which our observations, and the information you and your child’s school have provided are considered using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5^th Edition (DSM5) to determine whether your child meets the criteria for a diagnosis of autism.
LETTING YOU KNOW THE OUTCOME
- We will phone you with the outcome of your child’s assessment within a week of the final assessment session.
- We will email you a detailed report including recommendations and signposting.
FOLLOW UP MEETING
- Finally, we offer you a follow up meeting, this takes place online with one of our experienced clinicians and is an opportunity for you to ask us any questions about the assessment, report, recommendations and next steps.