Autism Assessments

Autism, sometimes called Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) or Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) is a form of neurodiversity. This means that a person’s brain works differently to others’. This does not mean that they are broken or lesser, but it can lead to additional challenges in environments that are not set up to meet their needs. There is argument as to how much of this is genetic and how much is affected by environment.

People with autism can often struggle socially. They tend to find it difficult to understand other peoples’ emotions and moods. They can struggle with understanding sarcasm or complicated speech, especially if it contains metaphors or imprecise language. People with autism can also have a hard time understanding their own emotions and tend to be quite unaware of what they are thinking or feeling. Friendships tend to be quite hard to maintain, and tend to be exhausting for them. A lot of people with autism can learn to “mask” symptoms so that they seem to be doing much better than they are, but they are only pretending. This can also be highly exhausting and lead to burn out.

Some people with autism experience meltdowns or shutdowns. Meltdowns are when emotions have been building up and suddenly come out in an explosion of anger or upset. Shutdowns are the opposite, and are where people become unable to function and need to take themselves away from an environment to somewhere quiet.

People with autism tend towards having a very limited range of hobbies and preferred topics of conversation. This tends to be more obvious in men than women, but is present in some form in both. This can also manifest as a rigidity when it comes to routines or expectations, and deviations from this can be very difficult. In some people with autism, this also leads to repetitive behavioural ticks such as tapping or making specific noises.

While not necessary for diagnosis, most people with autism tend to experience either a significantly heightened or reduced experience of sensory inputs. This leads them to either avoid or seek out that sensation. Everyone has this to a degree, but it tends to be exaggerated in people with autism. Everyone has an individual sensory profile and may over feel some sensory inputs and under feel others to differing degrees.

The main senses are: sight, hearing, touch, taste, smell

The less well known ones are: vestibular and proprioception

People who experience heightened sight input may struggle with fluorescent strip lighting. People who experience reduced sight input may seek to explore this by flapping their fingers in front of their eyes or stare into bright lights.

A person who experiences a heightened touch input may find specific textures uncomfortable. They may cut the labels out of clothing or avoid certain foods because of unpleasant textures. A person who experiences reduced touch may seek it out through wanting to be hugged tightly or wrapped up in blankets.

Many of the presentations of autism can be similar to experiences associated with anxiety or mental health difficulties.

It may also be that you have another condition that affects people in a similar way. Two examples of this are listed below.

Attachment

Early traumatic experiences or attachment disruptions can also lead to similar presentations to autism. Children with such experiences are very prone to going into an anxious state of “fight or flight” if they feel unsafe. This can lead them to struggle to pay attention in school as they are aware of any sounds in their environment that may signal threat. They can also become angry very quickly and struggle to regulate their emotions. These children can also have a lot of excess energy that they need to get rid of through movement. This energy comes from an over production of adrenaline. For children or adults who have had these sorts of traumatic experiences, we would recommend therapy. 

ADHD

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder can also present in similar ways to autism, especially in younger children. While the brain processes involved are very different, from the outside it can be difficult to tell them apart. Both autism and ADHD can lead people to struggle with attention and memory. People with ADHD tend to be more impulsive than people with autism and tend to have obsessions that are very short lived and changeable.

In the first instance, it is always best to go through an NHS service to get an assessment for autism. NHS services are free of charge and diagnoses are guaranteed to be accepted onto medical records. However, due to increasing demands, NHS services often have waiting lists of upwards of three years. 

If you would like to look into a private assessment for autism, there are a few key considerations.

For children, it is worth checking whether the school is likely to accept a private diagnosis if you are hoping for additional support for your child.

For employed adults, it is worth checking if employers will accept a private diagnosis to offer any additional support or accommodations.

It is also generally worth checking with your GP whether they would accept a private diagnosis. Each county has different rules, and each GP practice has their own preferences. This is less important for autism than ADHD assessments as there are no specific medications aimed at treating autistic presentations. 

We offer autism assessments for adults of any age and children aged 8 or above. While assessments can be administered with children from a much younger age, they tend to be less accurate as children develop social and emotional skills at different rates. 

Children

For children, we will begin by having a brief free initial conversation with a parent, carer, or guardian to discuss your individual needs and worries. 

If you decide to proceed with this, we will then arrange to speak to your child for approximately half an hour to get to know them. We will then conduct a brief interview, usually around one to two hours, with a parent, carer, or guardian. In this interview, we will examine developmental milestones, potential signifiers of autistic traits, and possible alternative explanations for presentations.

We will then arrange for your child to attend for a practical assessment. This involves your child sitting with two facilitators (and a parental figure if required) and completing a series of games, puzzles, and interviews. The exact tasks involved in this vary depending on the age, developmental level, and verbal skills of the child.

We use the practical assessment to measure the presence and significance of autistic traits, and the interview data to examine underlying causes of these traits to determine if something else better explains them.

Once these have been done, we will arrange a half hour conversation with you (and your child if preferred) to discuss the findings. You then have the option to pay for a full diagnostic report if you wish. If so, we will compile a report complete with findings and outlining any areas that school may need to make accommodations or may want to focus strategies to help support your child.

Adults

For adults, we will begin by having a brief free initial conversation with the adult involved if possible, or else a parent, carer, or guardian to discuss individual needs and worries. 

If you decide to proceed with this, we will then conduct a brief interview, usually around one to two hours with you. If that feels like it would be too much, we can break it down into smaller time chunks. We can instead work with a parent, carer, or guardian. Ideally this would be with someone who has known you for a long time. In this interview, we will examine developmental milestones, potential signifiers of autistic traits, and possible alternative explanations for presentations.

We will then arrange for you to attend for a practical assessment. This involves sitting with two facilitators (and a parental figure if required). The facilitators can meet with you beforehand if that would help you feel less anxious. We will be completing a series of games, puzzles, and interviews. 

We use the practical assessment to measure the presence and significance of autistic traits, and the interview data to examine underlying causes of these traits to determine if something else better explains them.

Once these have been done, we will arrange a half hour conversation with you (and your parental figure if preferred) to discuss the findings. You then have the option to pay for a full diagnostic report if you wish. If so, we will compile a report complete with findings and outlining any areas that work or school may need to make accommodations or may want to focus strategies to help support you. 

We understand that seeking an autism diagnosis privately often comes from desperation to get help and therefore do not believe that we should be charging more for this than is necessary. Accordingly, we have broken costs down into two parts.

The initial assessment costs £400. This includes an interview, administration and scoring of all necessary measures, and a brief summary discussion afterwards.

You then have the option for us to write a formal report recommending whether you meet the diagnostic criteria for autism and listing areas of difficulty and possible solutions. It also includes a section detailing accommodations that may be helpful for you, school, or work places. 

The report costs a further £450. We charge for this separately so that you can be assured that the report will only be conducted if it is going to be useful to you.

If you then feel that you would benefit from individual or family therapy in relation to this, we offer ongoing therapy at our usual rates. 

If you would like to discuss this further, please contact us using the form or via email.