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Please contact us using the enquiry form to start the self-referral process for a child 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 ensure you have read the statement about medication below if this is relevant to your needs.

 

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​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. ​​

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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 have an initial phone call and then send you screening questionnaires to complete on behalf of your child and  questionnaires for school/education setting to complete (if applicable). For an older child, we may also ask them to complete forms. 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 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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*Please note, we provide electronic access to the qualitative screening questionnaires or you can request these as a Microsoft Word document (which would be password protected) for completion on a laptop, computer or tablet.  If this method is not 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 (£1500)

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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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​​If you would like to proceed to a full 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, physical health, family history, social functioning, thinking styles, sensory experiences, attentional skills, activity levels and the impact of this on daily life. This interview draws from the ADHD Child Evaluation (ACE) or the Diagnostic Interview for ADHD in young people (Young DIVA). The appointment takes about 2 hours to complete. We have adapted these assessments in keeping with up to date understandings of 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 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)-  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.  Depending on the age/needs of your child, we will also include some play based assessment. We may 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 1 hour.  For a younger child, we may do this assessment in school.  Please see below. 

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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.  It can be helpful for some children.  For example, for a younger child, we find it is helpful to observe them in school as the more interview based assessments can be too much for them.  We can also carry out play based assessment with them in this setting if school can accommodate this. We will discuss this on a case by case basis with you.  School observation will not incur any extra cost.  

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After the assessment (included in stage 2):

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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 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 details of how the assessment was completed, our findings and tailored 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 ADHD assessment is £1700.​

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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 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. 

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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.  You may already be open to one of these teams and it would be advisable to remain on this list if medication is something you wish to consider in future. We are happy to answer any further questions.​​​

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