We know it can feel daunting when you’re considering getting an autism assessment for you or a child in your care. When you know what to expect, it can make it all feel that bit easier.
To help you get ready for an autism assessment, we’ll look at what happens in an autism assessment for adults and children, as well as what to do if you don’t receive a diagnosis.
How to Prepare for an Autism Assessment
Preparing for your autism assessment ensures a smooth process and might also help reduce nerves when going into the assessment — but what should you prepare?
A pre-assessment questionnaire is a quick form people can fill out before their assessment to let the clinician know a bit of initial background information.
Your clinician will send similar questionnaires to loved ones to build a fuller picture of your behaviour. So, have one or two people in mind who are happy to complete them about you.
For children, you’ll need to gather school reports and developmental history for the clinician to see. Plus, it’s likely they’ll want to speak to your child’s school, too. To avoid delays, it’s best to inform the school of this before you attend the actual assessment.
If you have any accessibility requests, such as an interpreter or sensory adjustments, you can ask your clinician for these ahead of time, too.
What Happens in an Autism Assessment: Step-by-Step
1. Getting Referred
Before we get into what happens in an autism assessment, you’ll need a referral from your GP. For children, referrals can also come from schools or a Special Educational Needs Coordinator (SENCO).
All you need to do is arrange an appointment with your local GP to discuss your current traits and how they’re impacting you. It might help to keep a journal of the traits you notice, as well as when they occur, to guide what’s discussed during your appointment.
Keep in mind that wait times for NHS autism assessments can reach up to 3 years. As such, it could be a while before you actually see a clinician for diagnosis.
When a spot becomes available, you’ll be sent a time, date, and location for your autism assessment.
With private autism assessments, you’re able to skip this step entirely and book directly with a provider near you. Give us a call to discuss your options for a private consultation.
2. Going to the Assessment
Once at your appointment, there are a few steps that happen in an autism assessment to be aware of.
Your clinician will talk through any pre-assessment questionnaires before asking you a series of questions about daily life and sensory experiences. For a child autism assessment, the clinician will also want to discuss how their behaviour differs in school and at home.
During an assessment, your clinician may use tools like ADOS-2 for observations and ADI-R for interviews, before comparing their findings against DSM-5 or ICD-11 criteria.
In total, this process can take around 60 to 90 minutes for adults, with child assessments taking between 90 minutes and 4 hours.
3. Receiving Your Results
Once your clinician has reached an outcome, they’ll invite you back. You’ll be given a written report of their findings, which you can discuss during your follow-up appointment, as well as ask any questions you might have. These findings will be shared with your GP, too.
4. Accessing Support
A diagnosis can make it easier to access school support for your child, as well as workplace adjustments for yourself.
For children, you can talk to their teachers about getting Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND) support, and a diagnosis can help strengthen the case for this.
As an adult, you can request reasonable workplace adjustments, such as receiving meeting agendas ahead of time, using internal messaging for communication, and flexible working hours.
What Happens in an Autism Assessment for Adults?
With an adult autism assessment, the adult is typically able to speak about their experiences for themselves, with some input from people around them for support.
Typically, only the patient, the assessor, and a few close family or friends are involved in the diagnosis process. They’ll be asked about their history and experiences with traits of autism, while their family and friends will be asked to provide supporting evidence.
What Happens in an Autism Assessment for Children?
With a child autism assessment, there needs to be more people involved to ensure enough information is collected — parents, carers, teachers, paediatricians, etc.
Alongside the additional people involved, there are also a few more steps required to diagnose a child with autism accurately, such as:
- Play observation
- Collection of school reports
- Use of play-based diagnostic tools
- Involvement of teachers
What If You Don’t Get an Autism Diagnosis?
When you’re really struggling with signs of autism, ending the assessment without a diagnosis can be a concern, leaving you wondering what’s really happening and what comes next.
Well, not getting an autism diagnosis doesn’t mean you’ll never get answers. It may just mean we need to look elsewhere. Signs of autism can be similar to or co-occur with other conditions, such as ADHD or OCD, so it could be worth exploring a diagnosis for other neurodivergent conditions.
Diagnosing autism isn’t always easy, especially if there are other difficulties to factor in, like anxiety or sensory needs. As such, you can always consider getting a second opinion, too.
If you are finding yourself feeling more anxious, you can still access support for this either with or without an autism diagnosis. You can speak to your GP about anxiety and how to better support your health, as well as requesting reasonable adjustments at work.
Get a Comprehensive, Compassionate Autism Assessment With Neuroaffinity
Here at Neuroaffinity, we’re passionate about giving people the answers they need, when they need them — that’s why we created our autism assessments.
We provide assessments for both children and adults, ensuring age-appropriate, compassionate assessments for all. With us, you beat the waiting times for NHS assessments. Plus, we’ll give you bespoke support plans to care for you even after you’ve left our clinic.
Get in touch with us today for more information. You can call us on 07768 565162, send an email to enquiries@neuroaffinity.co.uk, or fill out our contact form for a callback.
