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Please contact us using the enquiry form to start the self-referral process for a child Autism and ADHD 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. ​

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*Please note we do not offer 'stand alone' ADHD assessment and we only offer ADHD assessment alongside Autism assessment.  Please ensure you have read the statement about medication below if this is relevant to your needs.

 

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

Stage 1 - Screening (£250)

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. ​​

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• This early stage of the assessment is to determine why you, your child, their school or others think your child might be Autistic and have ADHD.  Full assessments can be costly for some families and therefore we offer screening 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 or ADHD is not indicated at that point and this is something we will discuss together with you. 

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• We will send you screening questionnaires to complete on behalf of your child and  questionnaires for school/education setting to complete (if applicable). This will be one ‘qualitative’ questionnaire where you get to write about your child in as much detail as you wish and one standardised 'gold standard' questionnaire, the Conners 4.  The Conners will be completed via an online secure link. This will help us to determine whether a full assessment is required given the experiences described.  We will also consider alternative or additional explanations 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 and ADHD 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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• It may be that the screening indicates either Autism or ADHD rather than both and if this is the case, we will discuss our thoughts about the next steps. ​

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*Please note, we send the qualitative 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 (£2750)

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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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• The price above is for combined Autism and ADHD assessment.  If the screening does not indicate that both assessments are needed, this price will reduce to just include one part.

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• If you would like to proceed to a full Autism and ADHD 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 early development to give you chance to think about this before the developmental history appointment. ​

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• Developmental History - Parents will be invited to attend a developmental history interview where we will discuss your child’s development from pregnancy, their current strengths and difficulties, mental health, social functioning, thinking styles, sensory experiences, attentional skills, activity levels and the impact of this on daily life. This interview draws from the Autism Diagnostic Interview Revised (ADI-R). We will ask some questions relating to possible ADHD, but more of those will be discussed in the direct assessment.  The appointment takes about 2 hours to complete, but please allow 2.5 hours. We have adapted these assessments in keeping with up to date understandings of Autism and ADHD and to allow us to ask about wider things such as cultural differences. It can be helpful to take notes before this session to jog your memory. Up to 2 people can attend this appointment, as people who know your child well can often provide useful information and support during the process. In order to protect your child’s well-being and self-esteem, we would strongly encourage that your child does not attend this appointment (as reviewing your child’s differences and difficulties could be upsetting for your child to hear).  This will take place via telephone or video call (Google Meet).

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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 if this is appropriate.

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• Child/young person-based assessment (in person)-  A standardised one-to-one interaction-based assessment called the ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule – Second Edition) between one of our clinicians and your child. The ADOS-2 assessment is an activity-oriented assessment administered by a trained clinician and is designed to elicit and detect behaviours related to Autism. We will adapt this based on your child and their individual needs. In addition, we will undertake an informal semi-structured interview, informed by the Young DIVA-5, designed to explore and understand your child’s behaviours and experiences that could be indicative of ADHD. For the ADOS-2, we will usually do this by ourselves with the young person if they are comfortable with this.  For the second half of the assessment (Young DIVA 5), we will ask parent/s to join us to give them chance to offer examples and share their experiences alongside their child related to possible ADHD. This appointment will last around 2 hours.

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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 - After all observations and interviews are complete and relevant information has been collected, the multidisciplinary team meets to discuss all information gathered in relation to DSM-V (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th Edition) diagnostic criteria, in order to reach a decision about whether we think your child is autistic and/or meets criteria for ADHD.

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• Feedback appointment - Once the team have made a decision about whether or not your child fulfils 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 Autism and ADHD assessment is £2950.​

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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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• Medication and ADHD – As we are not medics, it is not appropriate for us to advise on medication. We will provide psychological ideas and recommendations for support. Where an ADHD diagnosis is given, some people may also want to explore options around medication which we will discuss with you.  In this case, we are able to provide contact details for external private partnership services and their pharmacist prescribers who could think with you about medication options. Alternatively, you could seek your own service to explore medication with. As part of your assessment with Autism Unpicked, we will explore physical health, however an external provider of medication would do this in more depth and seek information via your GP to ensure medication was safe and appropriate and thereafter arrange any agreed medication prescriptions for you.  The services that Autism Unpicked can provide you the details of are not part of the Autism Unpicked team. They work independent of us and will usually arrange some follow up appointments with you to explore medication suitability and needs. This would be a paid service with a Consultant Psychiatrist or pharmacist prescriber. If agreed appropriate, they would then make links with your GP to gradually move your care back to the GP in a ‘shared care’ agreement.  It would be advisable that you check with your GP to ensure that this is something that they would accept. If there are changes needed to your medication in future, it may be that this needs to be completed by the original prescriber before moving back to your GPs care again. Alternatively, you may wish to speak with your GP about how to seek medication via the NHS should you receive a diagnosis. For a child, this would usually include a referral into an NHS CAMHS or neurodevelopmental assessment team for which there would be a wait. We are happy to answer any further questions.​​​

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