Assessment and diagnosis for children, and for adults who went unrecognised — along with treatment for the anxiety, depression and ADHD that so frequently accompany it.
Autism is a difference in how a person processes the social world, sensory information and change. It is not an illness and there is no treatment that removes it — nor, for most autistic people, would that be the goal. What a diagnosis provides is an explanation, access to accommodations, and a different account of a lifetime of difficulty.
What is treatable is what tends to travel with it. Anxiety, depression, ADHD and sleep difficulty are considerably more common in autistic people than in the general population, and they respond to treatment in the ordinary way. That is most of the medical work here.
The first is a parent. The second and third are adults who were never assessed as children.
He lines things up for hours and is completely happy. He just does not seem to need us in the way his sister did.
Parent, child aged 4I can do the social part. I just need two days to recover afterwards, and nobody believes that is what is happening.
Consultant, 33My son was diagnosed and I recognised myself in every line of the report.
Father, 39Autism is one of the most strongly genetic conditions in all of medicine, and it is present from the beginning.
Twin studies put the heritability very high, and it is common for a parent to recognise themselves during a child's assessment. Nothing a parent did or failed to do causes autism — not screens, not working, not vaccination, not affection.
Much of what is disabling is the gap between how an autistic person works and how a classroom, office or social world is arranged. Change what can be changed around them and a good deal of the difficulty reduces without anything being done to the person at all.
The diagnosis itself is the intervention here, more than anything that follows it.
For a child, from the parents. For an adult, from school reports, family memory and anything that records what you were like at six — because the diagnosis requires the traits to have been present then, even if nobody named them.
How you read people, how you manage change, and what sound, light, touch and crowds actually do to you. The sensory part is routinely left out elsewhere and is often the most disabling.
ADHD occurs alongside autism very commonly, and anxiety almost as often. These are looked for in the same assessment rather than requiring a separate appointment.
For children: speech therapy, occupational therapy and specific arrangements at school. Medication plays no part in treating autism itself and is used only where anxiety, sleep or ADHD need it — which is a decision made separately and explained in those terms.
For adults: a written report that can be given to an employer or university, treatment of whatever is co-occurring, and a frank conversation about which accommodations are worth asking for. Many adults want the diagnosis and nothing else, and that is a complete outcome.
Autistic people differ on whether they prefer to be called autistic or a person with autism. Both appear on this page. In the consultation you will be asked which you prefer, and that is what will be used.
Includes the written assessment. A full autism diagnostic assessment usually needs more than one appointment, and you will be told at the first what is involved.
For adults, largely yes — the assessment rests on history and detailed questioning. For young children, in-person observation matters a great deal, so expect at least one clinic appointment. Structured assessment tools may also be recommended, and you will be told if so.
Very common, and increasingly so. Bring school reports if you have them, and anyone who knew you as a child if that is possible. The assessment is the same process, just reconstructed from further back.
Records are confidential and shared with nobody without your written consent — including schools. Many parents choose to disclose because it unlocks support, but that is your decision, and it can be made after you have the report rather than before.
No, and anyone selling one is selling something else. Medication treats co-occurring anxiety, sleep difficulty, ADHD or significant irritability. The distinction is kept explicit so that nobody is on tablets believing they are treating autism itself.
Assessment in children
Very commonly alongside
Anxiety is near-universal
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