BLOG

Autism Assessments for Children and Young People

We know waiting lists for children and young people’s mental health and neurodiversity services are long, and children, young people and families are struggling without the input they need. The St Andrews Practice is beginning to offer a range of services for Children and Young People.

We now offer:

• Autism Assessments for 12-17 year old

We provide multi-disciplinary autism assessments for children and young people aged between 12 – 17. We are qualified to use gold-standard diagnostic tools such as ADOS when appropriate to ensure your assessments represents the highest quality. Our experienced clinicians will meet with you either in person or online over several sessions to gather a holistic view of the child/young person’s needs. We are interested in learning about the child/young person’s developmental, educational and medical history and in how they function in different contexts. Our assessment process is likely to involve parents/carers, the young person and school staff where appropriate.

Once the assessment information has been gathered, a feedback session will be arranged to share the findings, discuss diagnosis, next steps and provide you the opportunity to ask any questions. A detailed written report describing the robust assessment process, and diagnostic outcome will shared with the family/young person. This report will provide an overview of the child’s strengths, areas of difficulty and recommended supports. Where appropriate we can liaise with schools/colleges with regards to reasonable adjustments that may promote a more positive experience for the young person.

Please note we are not able to accept referrals from young people with a learning disability, history of psychosis, receiving mental health? treatment in hospital or from children who on the child protection register.

• Educational Assessments

 We provide educational assessments for children aged 5 and above who are struggling with learning, emotional well-being, relationships and behaviour. Assessments are designed in a holistic and bespoke way based on the individual needs of the child/young person. Depending on the child or young person’s needs, the assessment may be broad e.g. general cognitive functioning or specific e.g. literacy difficulties. We are interested in finding out about the emotional/social, cognitive, academic, communication, physical/sensory and environmental factors that are affecting learning. Our assessment process is likely to involve parents/carers, the young person and school staff where appropriate. The clinician first meets with parents/carers before working with the child over several sessions to gather assessment information.

Once the assessment information has been gathered a written report will be shared with the family/young person. This report will provide an overview of the child’s strength, areas of difficulty and outline recommended educational supports. A feedback session can be arranged to share the findings of the report, discuss next steps and provide you the opportunity to ask any questions.

• Some individual therapeutic Interventions including EMDR

We can provide therapeutic intervention for children aged 6 years and above who are experiencing mental health difficulties. If your child or teen is showing symptoms of emotional distress which is having an impact on their quality of life, we are always ready to listen and try to help.

The aim of any type of therapy is to try to reduce or remove the amount of emotional distress a person is feeling and provide them with more effective coping strategies. Some children may only require a few sessions to help resolve their distress, whilst others will require longer term intervention, especially if their circumstances are more complex. Sessions typically last 60-90 minutes and can be done in person or online.

We regret that we are not able to accept referrals from children and young people who present with high levels of risk to self or others as we do not have the resources to manage this.

Costs can be found on our fees page. Appointments can be booked by completing out online referral form.

If any additional information is required, please contact [email protected]