Autism & ADHD Combined Assessments

What Is Autism?

Autism is a neurodevelopmental difference in how a person communicates, interacts with others, and understands the world around them.

What Is ADHD?

ADHD - Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder - is a neurodevelopmental difference in the way a young person pays attention, manages their energy, and responds to the world around them. It isn’t a mental health condition or a learning disability, although some children with ADHD may also experience anxiety.

When autism and ADHD occur together, children may experience a blend of different challenges and strengths across both areas.

Process for Assessment

Pre-assessment phase:

1. Phone screening – we will discuss your child to check if this is the right kind of assessment.

2. We will send you a link for our pre-assessment form along with Conners questionnaires for home and school. We will score these when they are returned to us.

3. We will then meet with you and your child for an hour. This would be to go through a general background and to make the decision about whether to proceed with the combined assessment, switch to Autism or ADHD only or perhaps conclude that there is not enough evidence to proceed.

Assessment phase

If we go ahead with the full assessment it will consist of:

• DISCO (Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders) parent interview and DIVA questionnaire which is completed with the parents and child separately

• ADOS-2 (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Version 2

• WISC-V (Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, Version Five)

• QB-Check computer-based assessment with your child

• School observation or questionnaire/interview for older children

• Occupational therapy (OT) assessment with our partners Leap Children’s Therapy

• Write up and generation of detailed report covering both autism and ADHD including diagnostic decision and recommendations

• Complimentary follow up appointment to discuss recommendations