Private Autism Assessment for Children, Young People & Adults

It is important to check that your autism assessment is carried out by TWO different people from two different professional backgrounds, both of whom are suitably qualified to use the assessment tools and are registered with the appropriate clinical bodies (HCPC or GMC).

We also think it’s important that our staff have significant career history of working in the NHS – we won’t employ anyone who doesn’t. This means that your assessment is being carried out by the same type of professional that would be employed to do this work in the health service, so you can be assured that (as well as the right qualification) they have the right experience.

Both assessors should be directly involved in administering the assessments and should not delegate this work to other, less suitably qualified people. We cannot stress enough the importance of checking the clinical qualification and experience of your chosen assessors, since whether or not the results will be ‘accepted’ by the NHS/education is likely to depend on whether the professionals carrying out the assessment are felt to be qualified to do so.

At Spectrum, you will be seen by any combination of a clinical psychologist, speech and language therapist or occupational therapist, however there will always be a clinical psychologist and speech and language therapist involved in the diagnostic process somewhere along the way.

Another advantage of this approach is that we are able to provide a wide range of second opinion within the multi-disciplinary team to advise, even if that clinician has not been used as part of the original diagnostic process. We also seek supervision and advice from one another within our own areas of specialism, e.g. learning disability, attachment differences or mental health. This helps us signpost to other services and explore other ideas for you.

All of our clinicians are qualified and licenced to use a range of assessment tools for autism, including ADOS (Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule) and DISCO (Diagnostic Interview for Social Communication Disorders) as well as sensory profiling.

We do not believe in using autism checklists and screening tools to work out whether a person might be on the autistic spectrum, not only because they lack sensitivity, but because such checklists are widely available online – we will never charge a fee to complete something that can be completed for free on the internet.

Equally, we believe in taking a full case history ourselves rather than via completion of a questionnaire – this helps us ask the right questions and to develop a sound understanding of the background to your referral. It means you’ll spend longer talking to us and less time ticking boxes.

All of our clinicians are qualified and licenced to use a range of assessment tools for autism, including ADOS, ADI-R and DISCO as well as sensory profiling.

We do not believe in using autism checklists and screening tools to work out whether a person might be on the autistic spectrum, not only because they lack sensitivity, but because such checklists are widely available online – we will never charge a fee to complete something that can be completed for free on the internet.

Equally, we believe in taking a full case history ourselves rather than via completion of a questionnaire – this helps us ask the right questions and to develop a sound understanding of the background to your referral. It means you’ll spend longer talking to us and less time ticking boxes.

This depends on which assessments we use. It will take us two to three hours to do our basic assessment and around three hours, sometimes longer, for a more detailed one. The assessment is usually completed within the same week, but in some circumstances where an observation takes place outside of our clinic or a consultation with other professionals is needed, we may conduct the assessment over a longer time period. Parts of our assessment are done concurrently, i.e. with the two clinicians in two different rooms, one taking a developmental history and the other undertaking the ADOS-2 so the whole process can take around 4-5 hours with total clinic time being around 3 hours.

We have our own clinic in South Warrington. We chose this location because it is just a few minutes from the M6/M56 motorway network and major north-south and east-west routes. We are located on a bus route from Warrington town centre.

Our clinic is a bright and homely environment where we hope you will feel relaxed before and after the appointment. We have deliberately avoided creating a setting that appears ‘clinical’ because we know that this can make people feel anxious.

We can also arrange to see you at home if it is difficult to bring your child to clinic – this would depend on where you live, of course, as we tend to conduct visits within the North West of England.

If you have a child diagnosed with autism by Spectrum North West then you may be invited to join a ‘closed’ (i.e. private) Facebook group where other parents share their thoughts and tips. Some of our clinicians are on the group, which means we can stay in touch with you afterwards. We run free post-diagnostic sessions for parents who are members of this group, which can often be a way for parents to make contact outside of the Facebook group.

in the vast majority of cases, parents have had the report accepted without hesitation, often with compliments about the level of detail in the report – sometimes the NHS team go on to recommend us to other families seeking an independent diagnosis.

In a very few cases, we know that the local NHS team has questioned the parents using a ‘private’ assessment, sometimes insisting that the child remains on the NHS waiting list for assessment, even when the child’s GP and school have ‘accepted’ the diagnosis. It is our experience in these cases that the NHS team does tend to eventually ‘accept’ the results, however in the mean time, the recommendations arising are often put into place with very good effect, regardless of whether the child is still on the waiting list in the NHS.

It is important to note, however, that the NHS does not need to ‘rubberstamp’ or ‘accept’ a report for the results of assessment to be valid. The NHS is not the only healthcare provider in the UK, indeed, the private sector is growing considerably, and some clinicians work in both sectors – ourselves included. It is therefore not necessary for a clinician to work for the NHS in order to be qualified to carry out autism assessment- but it is necessary to have the correct clinical background and to have been trained and licenced in the use of the particular assessment tools. There is no legal requirement for a clinical report used for EHCP to have been conducted by the NHS as long as the clinicians are suitably qualified.

Having said that, it’s understandable that our clients want to know what is likely to happen – we do know that our reports have been accepted in several areas (for example, Warrington, Halton, Liverpool, Trafford, Tameside, Stockport, Wigan, Bury, Knowsley, St Helens, Cheshire East, Kirklees, Birmingham, Hertfordshire, Shropshire, Staffordshire, Worcestershire, Somerset, Lincolnshire, Cumbria, North Wales, Accrington, Blackpool, Bradford, Harrogate, Preston, Blackburn with Darwen, Oldham and Lancaster as well as West and East Lancashire). This means that our results have been accepted onto GP and paediatric records and we have received copies of EHCPs acknowledging our diagnosis and lifting large parts of our report for their own recommendations. We have also been commissioned directly by the NHS.

Our reports have been used in educational tribunals and this has assisted with gaining a place in the parents’ school of choice, often prior to any formal hearing.

It’s important to note that most of us actually work in the NHS ourselves, and all of us have a long career history in the NHS, so it would be unusual for an NHS provider to question our credentials.

If you would like to arrange a full assessment, we ask you to complete a new client form so we can find out the age of the person being assessed and the area that you live in. We will agree a date and ask for a deposit of £200 to secure the booking. It is important to note that the appointment is not booked until the deposit is received. On requesting a deposit, we will ‘hold’ the appointment for 48 hours. If the deposit is not received, then the appointment will become available for another client to book.