Autism assessments for children

Autism can affect each child differently. It is a neurological and developmental disorder that affects how people interact with others, communicate, learn, and behave. Although autism can be diagnosed at any age, it is described as a “developmental disorder” because symptoms generally appear in the first 2 years of life.

The right diagnosis means your family can move forward with confidence, knowing your child can access the expert support they need to thrive.

For Bupa members please click here.

Book an appointment
Recognising Depression In Children: What Parents Need To Know
Book an appointment
Book a consultation today to discuss your child's needs and explore how our team can support your child's journey with Onebright.
Book an appointment

How a Onebright autism assessment works

To be able to help your child in the most positive way, we first need to fully understand their neurodevelopmental makeup and needs. Our specialist team will conduct a thorough, expert autism assessment to ascertain if your child is or is not autistic.

Step 1

Screening

If you think that your child may be autistic, our free screening process will give clarity and insight. It will be carried out by our psychology team, led by a consultant clinical psychologist. If the results are indicative of autism, we’ll recommend a full diagnostic assessment to give a definitive answer. We will refer you to a Onebright company, Psicon, who have been a leading provider of high quality diagnostic assessments, treatment and support for autism and ADHD for over 20 years.

Step 2

Information Gathering - school/pre-school report

We ask your child’s school to fill in a report form and an online screening questionnaire, so we can understand their behaviour in different social settings. This helps our clinical team with their assessment and to better understand your child’s strengths and needs. If your child is home-schooled, don’t worry, this won’t affect the assessment. We will ask for a report from another suitable professional, or someone outside of the home who knows your child well.

Step 3

Multi-disciplinary assessment

The assessment brings together the expertise of a clinical psychologist, speech and language therapist or occupational therapist and a paediatrician, or child and adolescent psychiatrist. On the assessment day, we will work with your child in a playful way to observe their behaviour, using the ‘gold standard’ ADOS-2. This also includes a thorough review of your child’s development from your perspective, plus a school report that we’ll obtain from their teacher (or another suitable professional). Our team will then discuss all findings and present these to you, along with the outcome, immediately after the assessment is complete.

Step 4

Diagnostic Report

Working closely together, our team will produce a comprehensive report giving a full breakdown of the assessment. The outcome will be clear and easy to understand and include our recommendations for post-assessment support and adjustments for both home and school. As our assessments are fully NICE compliant, we provide peace of mind that our diagnostic reports and outcomes should be fully accepted by both the NHS and schools/colleges.

Step 5

Support

Following your child’s autism assessment, whether they are diagnosed or not, our expert team will guide you on what support options are available to you at Psicon. These include therapeutic support packages provided by Children & Young Persons (CYP) specialist clinicians working within our CYP Therapy Service.

Understanding children with autism

Neurodiversity is part of being human; a fact of life for millions of children and adults alike. And having a neurodevelopmental (ND) condition doesn’t mean you have a disease that needs to be cured, but that your neurological functions are organised differently to people who are neurotypical. An autism assessment is the first step to understanding your unique mind.
‍
However, neurodevelopmental differences can cause great distress when not recognised or understood. Once fully assessed and diagnosed, we can offer tools, support and therapies to help individuals move forward with positivity, peace and productivity.

Anxiety in Children: Is It More Than Just Worry?
Get started by answering some simple questions below or call 020 8129 0558

Begin your journey

Onebright client liaison are available Monday to Friday between 9am-5pm (excluding bank holidays).
If you are a Bupa member please visit onebright.com/bupa

Why choose us

Whilst most autism diagnoses are made in childhood, reaching adulthood with undiagnosed neurodevelopmental conditions is common. Autism assessments in adulthood can open the doors to better understanding of the challenges you may be facing, and provide recommendations for support and/or treatment. 

Convenient and timely
A nationwide network of psychiatrists and neurodevelopmental specialists offering consultations to meet your schedule.
Tailored assessment and treatment around individual’s needs
We pride ourselves in finding you the right psychiatrist to meet your needs without lengthy waiting times.
You can be sure you’re in safe hands
We provide thousands of outpatient appointments and reports every year, and our clinical team can usually see you within a few days.

Frequently asked questions

We treat all the information that you share with us, and the details about any treatment you receive, in strictest confidence (unless you have given us your permission to seek and/or share information with others).

The only limits to confidentiality are when a client is at risk of harm (from themselves or from others), someone else may be at risk of harm, or if we are ordered to share information by a court (or where the service is open to legal proceedings if we do not share information)

If any of these situations are the case, we will always seek consent to share information wherever possible. Our usual practice is to share information about your assessment and treatment with your GP, unless there are valid reasons not to.

When working with children and young people, the same principles of confidentiality apply, and we will usually only share information with the young person’s parents or carers with consent. There may however be some situations where we need to share information with parents and carers without consent, for example if the child/young person is not able to consent to treatment themselves.
Our private autism assessments are carried out by a multidisciplinary team made up of a clinical psychologist, speech and language therapist or occupational therapist and a consultant paediatrician or child and adolescent psychiatrist. The assessment takes place and is concluded on the same day, with immediate feedback on the diagnostic outcome provided to families. For children referred via the NHS, information on the assessment process can be found here.
When you arrive, you and your child will meet with our clinical team. Our clinicians will want to get to know your child, so once everybody has said ‘hello’ two of the team will take them to do lots of fun activities, like puzzles and storytelling. This is called an ‘ADOS’ and is considered the ‘gold standard’ tool for observing children as part of an autism assessment. During the ADOS, one of the clinicians will be observing and taking notes, while the other engages your child in naturalistic games and tasks designed to show up any autistic traits. While your child is with the clinicians, you'll be asked to speak with a consultant paediatrician or psychiatrist. They'll ask you about your child’s development, behaviours, strengths and needs. At the end of the session, the clinical team will re-group to discuss all the information gathered before and during the assessment appointment. They will then meet with you to provide feedback on the assessment, the diagnostic outcome and any recommendations they have for follow-up support and adjustments for home and school.
Our team are very experienced in working with young people and understand that an assessment is often a stressful experience for all the family. We will do our very best to put your child (and the whole family) at ease and are very skilled at engaging even the most shy and anxious children. In the worst case, if a child cannot engage in the session, we will either work with what they are able to do or offer another appointment.
Whilst the assessment process and diagnostic criteria are the same across the gender spectrum, it is true that autistic girls can present very differently to autistic boys. The criteria on which a diagnosis is made is largely known to be associated with symptoms in boys and men, and this can mean that girls who are autistic may go undiagnosed. Boys often present their symptoms in a more obvious or ‘stereotypical’ way, whereas girls may have more subtle traits. This is because they often learn how to hide their symptoms (mask) in order to fit in with their peers. Having assessed thousands of children for autism, we are used to seeing it present in many different ways. Our assessments are designed to take masking and camouflaging into account – especially in girls. Our team are very well trained in understanding the female presentation of autism and that traits and symptoms can be trickier to see.
Psicon is the leading provider of neurodevelopmental assessments in the UK, offering the highest quality diagnostic assessments and support for autism and ADHD. A highly valued member of the Onebright group of companies, we refer children and young people to Psicon’s clinicians for ADHD and autism assessments.
In September 2023, Psicon joined the Onebright group, the UK’s leading outpatient private mental health service. With our shared values, and a focus on clinical excellence and patient-centred care, we are very excited about the next chapter and what we can achieve together.