Diagnostic assessment FAQs
Why choose Every Mind?
We follow NICE Guidelines, are Gold Standard and then some!
Our diagnostic assessments go above and beyond. Yes, we follow NICE guidelines so we are recognised by schools, Local Authorities and the NHS. Yes, we use diagnostic measures that are considered Gold Standard. But we also put your child front and centre throughout. We always have a pre-assessment meeting/screener appointment, not just to help you and your child decide whether an assessment is needed and right for you, but also so we start to get to know your child, help them to see the clinic, meet the team, and help to settle them into the surroundings. We want your child to feel understood, valued and accepted from the moment they walk in to the moment they leave. We will take our time to do this, we won't make you feel rushed and a number in a conveyor belt of assessments.
We are a multi disciplinary team
We are a team of passionate, highly expert and professional clinicians from different professional backgrounds (clinical psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy). Many of us have worked with neurodivergent children for most of our career, and are parents of neurodivergent children. We've all worked in the NHS and most of us now work entirely in private practise. No one clinician makes a diagnostic decision themselves; we always work in a team and collaborate in all decision making.
Our support extends beyond diagnosis
After we have got to know you and your child well during the diagnostic assessment, we can also offer support following diagnosis. This could be psychological therapy, understanding diagnosis for you and your child, access to webinars and courses via our sister site, Nurturing Neurotypes. We can also help with further reports that may be needed as part of the Education, Health and Care plan (EHCP) and get the right support in place at school. The discovery of autism or ADHD is only the start; we will support you through the whole journey before and after!
Our assessments are recognised by NHS services and schools
Our comprehensive assessments are recognised by schools, local authorities and NHS services including CAMHS.
We are strength focussed and neuro affirming
From the moment you and your child walk into the door, our aim is to meet your child where they are at, and support whatever they need in the moment. This could mean spending time outside in our garden, playing with our pets, jumping around the room, walking around without shoes on!
We do not assume we are the experts on your child; you are. It is important as a parent you feel listened to and heard, and we want to take the time to do this.
Your child is central to everything!
Our assessments are extremely comprehensive (between 8 and 12 hours, not all at once of course!). We want to get to know you and your child in as much depth as possible in order to make a diagnosis but also to make recommendations of what to do next.
School Observations as Standard
It is really important to us to create partnerships with our schools to ensure we get the right information and therefore the right support for your child. Not only do teachers kindly complete questionnaires for us relating to your child, but we also interview them (either face to face or online) to dig deeper and get their observations and feedback. We also complete school observations which always gives us such rich and helpful information for the diagnostic assessment, but also in terms of our understanding of your child and the recommendations that we make.
Read more about the benefits of school observations here What are the benefits of a school observation as part of diagnostic assessment?
Frequently Asked Questions
I live quite far away from the clinic. Will you still assess my child?
Absolutely! We want to be able to meet and get to know your child in clinic so we will ask you to travel to us at least once. However the parental interview/developmental history taking can take place online so you can remain at home for this. We like to complete a school observation of your child and we will ask you to cover travel time for this and will discuss this when you book the assessment.
How long do we have to wait to get an assessment?
Our waiting times are much shorter than can be offered by the NHS. We hope to see you within 2-3 months of your initial enquiry.
What is your experience of diagnosing girls?
As a team, we are highly trained and sensitive to assessing neurodivergence in girls. Girls can be excellent maskers who have become very adept at hiding their differences from others. This means they are often able to 'hold it together' during shorter sessions in clinic. However, our team are highly skilled at being able to notice subtle differences in our girls. We are also proud to use the DISCO developmental interview tool which is brilliant at noting differences in the developmental histories of girls. Girls can often present with high levels of anxiety, especially when coming to a new place, so we aim to help them feel as comfortable and as settled as they can be by making any adaptions to the assessment process.
Do you also assess for ADHD?
We absolutely do! If at the screening appointment, we notice attention and concentration differences consistent with possible ADHD, as well as social communication differences, we may suggest a dual assessment for autism and ADHD. If during the autism assessment process, we pick up on such differences, we may suggest 'stepping up' the assessment to a dual assessment, or make recommendations for further assessment at a later date.
Do you assess for Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA)?
At the moment, PDA is not on 'official' diagnostic label so we cannot technically diagnose this. However we have a lot of experience of identifying and supporting children and young people who find demands and expectations extremely difficult and go to excessive lengths to avoid them. Therefore, whilst we cannot 'diagnose' PDA, we are able to describe the profile and identify this within our diagnostic reports, to ensure the right support is offered going forward.
Do both parents need to be involved in a diagnostic assessment?
Every Mind views the diagnostic assessment process as that of an important discovery and understanding about how a young person’s brain works and how they view the world. We strongly believe the diagnostic process should be positive and supportive throughout, and that any diagnosis made follows a comprehensive and thorough assessment where multiple informants are involved. This process can be undermined somewhat if a parent who have parental responsibility does not consent or is not involved in the assessment somehow. It is important that all views and perspectives are given and respected, to increase the integrity of any diagnosis and to prevent any possibility of it being questioned in the future.
We appreciate that when parents are separated, involving both parties can be challenging. We would like to involve both parents in the most appropriate and sensitive way for your family and for the child or young person.
To this end, if the child or young person has contact with both parents, both parents with parental responsibility for a child or young person will need to be aware of and consent to the diagnostic assessment.
We will ask for details of both parents ahead of the diagnostic assessment. We are happy to contact both parents to discuss the assessment in more detail so as to gain consent.
We would like to involve both parents in the assessment if possible or appropriate. This can be done in a number of ways:
Pre-assessment:
- We will ask both parents to complete the preassessment form and associated questionnaires.
During the assessment:
- Both parents will attend the parental interview together (where the developmental history is taken)
Or
- One parent attends the parental interview and the other emails to say that they do not wish to take part
Or
- One parent attends the parental interview and the other views a draft of the developmental history review report and adds comments over email
Or
- Parents attend the developmental history interview at different times (please note this will incur a fee which will be discussed before commencing the assessment)
Who gets to read the diagnostic reports?
There is a lot of information to write about in our diagnostic reports. We try to use the most strength focussed and neuro-affirming language throughout, though the reflect the DSM-V diagnostic criteria, some of it will still seem quite negative. This is the fault of the diagnostic system overall.
Some teenagers are cautious about information they give being shared with their parents. Parents are also concerned about the reports and what information they have shared, particularly if their teen would like to read them. We will try and be mindful of whomever is likely to read the reports and that the language and content is received as best that it can by its audience. Please discuss this further with us at your assessments.
Medication Route
ADHD medication
We have partnered with the Malvern Hills Private practise to offer families diagnosed at Every Mind Child Psychology with a fast, efficient route to ADHD medication, should this be the route that you'd like to go.
Once diagnosed, we will give you an online link to the Malvern Hills Practice to make an appointment with a psychiatrist who is highly experienced in prescribing to children. Waiting times can be as short as 2-3 weeks.
Please note this route is only available to children over the age of 11 years. If your child is younger, we can still refer you to other local psychiatrists or paediatricians to consider medication.
