Making the choice to proceed with an assessment of your child can involve many emotions.

I have three children who between them have been assessed for dyslexia, autism and ADHD. I think the biggest feeling I had, once I committed to booking that assessment, was that of ‘imposter syndrome’ – was I completely wrong in my suspicions? Was I just going to end up wasting the assessor’s time and looking silly? It’s so easy to listen to other parents – “Oh, she’s just shy”, “My son doesn’t sleep either,” “But he’s such a great reader!” – and start to think maybe they’re right. I work with neurodiverse young people so I even thought I was just taking my work home and seeing needs everywhere!
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But there we were, booked and committed. So what happens next?

First of all, there are a lot of forms to fill in with acronym names such as SRS, Conners, RCAD and SNAP. It can be helpful to have your red book handy for developmental questions, and to have someone help you who knows your young person well. It’s always reassuring to have a second opinion, especially for questions far back in childhood. Many of the questionnaires require a sliding scale of answers: ‘not true’, ‘sometimes true’, ‘often true’, ‘almost always true’; or ‘never’, ‘sometimes’, ‘often’, ‘always’. These can be completed online and emailed to be analysed by the clinician before the appointment. It is also helpful to share any other assessments that have been completed with your young person previously for background.

On the day of the appointment, it can again be helpful to have someone else with you. You may meet with the clinician in person or online, we have done both. I was concerned that the psychologist would not get a good enough picture of my daughter online but actually I felt that she presented just the same as she would have in person, perhaps even more so as she was comfortable in her home environment.

In both the autism and ADHD assessments, my husband and I spoke with the clinician for a period of time without our child being present. This conversation centred around early development first, leading up to current behaviours and concerns. Again, it was helpful to take some notes and observations with us to refer to. With the ADHD assessment, this interview took a shorter time – perhaps around 45 minutes – with the clinician working through questions using a tool called ACE (ADHD Child Evaluation). With the autism assessment, it took longer – perhaps upwards of an hour – again following a structured interview tool (3di).

At the end of the parent session of the ADHD assessment, our daughter was asked to join us and was then interviewed with us present. Some of the questions she was asked were very similar to those we had answered without her so it was interesting to compare perspectives. In a separate appointment, she then attended the clinic to complete the final part of her assessment in person, which was a computer-based test known as the Qb Check. The young person is shown two pairs of shapes in two different colours. One shape then appears at a time, and the participant has to click when the new shape is a repeat of the one before, just like Snap. The young person’s movements are tracked throughout the test using a webcam. Our daughter found this part of the assessment frustrating, but probably because it was specifically targeting her areas of challenge.

With the autism assessments, the children each completed a separate assessment in the room next door. This is a play-based assessment called ADOS-2. The therapist conducting the tasks worked hard to put the children at ease and all of them enjoyed this session, though they were bemused by some of the questions and tasks. This also took around an hour, tying in with the parent interview.

Following the assessments, the clinicians take time to score up and evaluate the information they have gathered. In the case of an autism assessment, two therapists will have completed tasks and need time to discuss their findings. A report is usually then written and sent to parents in around four weeks. The report can be very long and detailed. There will be pages of recommendations at the end and it’s important not to get too overwhelmed by all of these. The clinician will be wanting to give you as much support as possible and some of these recommendations will be for the future and not relevant yet. It can help to see the report as something to dip in and out of as your young person’s strengths and challenges change over time.

A parent meeting will be offered to discuss the findings of the report. This can be really helpful, as a diagnosis (or no diagnosis) can throw up a lot of questions and lead to a mixture of emotions. Being able to talk these through with a specialist and work through next steps with them is invaluable.

And finally, take time to digest the results of the assessment. It’s perfectly normal to feel the full range of emotions – from anger and grief, through to vindication and relief. Remember, that your child is still your child. Any diagnosis does not change who they are, it just adds to what you know about them and gives you, and those around them, a better idea of how to support them to leave a happy and fulfilled life. This is only ever a positive thing.