How We Work

Step 1 – Arrange a FREE Clinical Appointment with a clinician

Your FREE appointment will be with an Autism Specialist and usually lasts around 30 minutes.
This appointment gives parents the opportunity to discuss the difficulties your child may be experiencing with a trained professional. The clinicians will then try to support you with helpful strategies or signpost you to services that may be able to support you.  

The clinician will also explore different options with you that may be helpful to your situation. This may include arranging paperwork to be completed by you and your child's school, in order to see if an Autism assessment is necessary for your child. 

Once forms have been completed by parents and school, information will be passed to CareGen's clinical team to discuss in their multi-disciplinary referrals meeting. Within this meeting, the clinical team within CareGen will discuss whether an Autism assessment is absolutely necessary for your child. If an autism assessment is deemed suitable, you will be informed and requested to book your autism assessment. 

Click here to arrange a FREE Clinical Appointment with a clinician.

Step 2 – Booking your Assessment

Booking your formal autism assessment with us is quick and easy.

Our specialist team of clinicians assess most children and individuals within a few weeks of receiving both school and parent information. Once the clinical team have concluded their MDT meeting, parents will be informed and sent a link to the clinical teams calendar. Parents will then be able to choose which day they would like their assessment to be completed. Parents can then choose the date and time of their Childs assessment from this calendar. 

You can book your formal autism assessment here

Payment

Our formal autism assessment costs £1200

Payment can either be made in full at the time of booking or you can arrange to spread the cost via a third-party finance provider. You can find out more about our third-party finance provider here.

How to access Flexible Finance options

At CareGen, we have partnered with 3rd party providers in order to provide our service users with flexible finance to spread the cost of our services. These offers will be available at the checkout page. 

Currently, we are using PayPal and Klarna. At checkout, the buy now pay later options may be available to you from either of these providers. Click this option if you would like to spread the cost of your assessment. 

 

Step 3 – Day of Assessment

Our formal assessment for autism spectrum disorder is conducted online and will involve two key appointments. One to gather information about your child’s developmental history and background information. The other is a clinical observation of the child by two specialist clinicians. This may include an ADOS assessment which will be administered via video link and from the comfort of your own home.

Appointment 1 – Detailed Developmental History

The Developmental History session is attended by the parent/guardian of the child and is conducted by a qualified clinician.

This session is held prior to the formal autism assessment and is an opportunity for you to engage in a thorough discussion with a clinician about your child’s educational, developmental history and behavior.

 

Appointment 2 – Observation session

The observation session is a structured assessment and is conducted by one clinician. A second clinician will observe the child throughout the assessment. During this session, the clinician will take your child through a series of activities to accurately assess how they interact with others. The observation session is simply an opportunity for the clinician to learn more about your child and can take around 1hour 30 minutes to complete.

 

 

Step 5 - Post Assessment

After your appointments have taken place, your clinician will meet with a multidisciplinary team to discuss the assessment and decide on an outcome (usually on the same day as the observation session). Within this meeting, the clinicians will explore all of the information presented to determine whether your child meets the diagnostic criteria for autism. Once the clinicians have come to their conclusion, you will be informed on the same day via video link. The clinicians will explain their rationale for their decision and parents are encouraged to ask as many questions as possible. 

Your clinician will then create a report. You will receive a draft copy of this report within two weeks of your assessment. You will then have 48hours to request any changes to be made to the draft report before the report is finalised. We will send the finalised report to you, and with your consent, to your GP practice (to be added to health records) or any other professional involved in your child’s care.