The Autism Diagnostic Service for Children and Young People aged 4-17 years, is run by Dr Alex Robinson and Dr Phil Martin in Petersfield.

We both have extensive experience of being part of an ASD service in the NHS, and ensure we follow the ‘Gold Standard’ NICE guidelines in our process of assessment.

What is involved in an Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessment?

In the first instance we will contact you by telephone and arrange an initial screening appointment, lasting approximately 90 minutes. This will ensure that a full autism assessment is appropriate for your child, as well as explaining the process and answering any questions you may have.

At this initial appointment we will ask you to fill in a number of questionnaires, and also give you some forms to ask your child’s teacher(s) to complete. We will also screen for other developmental difficulties such as sensory issues, speech and language problems, ADHD or mental health difficulties as appropriate. If needed we can also test for learning disabilities.

If autism seems indicated at this screening stage we proceed to the next stage to complete further, more detailed, assessments. The assessments we may use are:

• The Autism Diagnostic Assessment Observation Schedule (ADOS 2) with your child.
• A standardised autism assessment interview called the ADI-R with yourselves, to obtain a detailed developmental history of your child, their current functioning and family circumstances.
• Speech and language based observation and assessment with your child at their school

Following completion of the assessments, the multi-disciplinary team of professionals who have been part of the assessment meet to reach a conclusion about your child. We may also meet with a Consultant Psychiatrist colleague for supervision, if required, to ensure our assessments are multi-disciplinary.

Lastly we will meet with you to discuss the outcome of our assessment, and whether or not your child meets the criteria for an autism diagnosis or not and recommendations. Please be aware that in a very small minority of cases it is not always possible to reach a diagnostic conclusion. 

For more information or to find out more, please get in touch.