Child Autism Assessment
A child autism assessment is a comprehensive process designed to understand your child’s social communication skills, behaviour patterns, and developmental profile. Our assessments combine gold-standard tools—such as the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2) with parent interviews, developmental history, and behavioural observations. This type of assessment is usually conducted for school-age children as young as 8 years old and adolescents as well. The most common reason a child autism assessment is conducted is to get access to accommodations and/or modifications in the classroom to help the child in the classroom. The purpose of the assessment is to identify: autism, intellectual giftedness, learning disorders, ADHD, developmental delays, behavioural issues, mood or emotional concerns, social issues, and overall academic and intellectual strengths and weaknesses.
Breakdown of a Child Autism Assessment
Clinical Intake Appointment
The process begins with meeting a clinical psychologist to discuss background, medical, developmental, and educational history, symptoms and their severity, major life events, and family makeup to better understand your child's unique case.
Intelligence Testing
Children complete a Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Fifth Edition (WISC-V), which measures a child’s intellectual ability and the 5 cognitive domains that impact performance for children (Verbal Comprehension, Visual Spatial, Fluid Reasoning, Working Memory and Processing Speed). This is particularly crucial in autism assessments for children, as a thorough assessment must discern if the child has any intellectual challenges.
Achievement Testing
Children complete a Wechsler Individual Achievement Test Third Edition (WIAT-IV) to assess strengths and weaknesses related to areas of Reading, Written Language, Mathematics, and Oral Language. This allows us to rule out the possibility of a learning disorder, which may be comorbid with an autism diagnosis.
Specialized Autism Testing
The Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2), is a gold-standard, play-based assessment used to help identify autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children. It involves structured activities and social interactions designed to observe communication skills, social behaviours, play, and restricted or repetitive patterns of behaviour. A child autism assessment may also include specialized questionnaires such as the (SRS™-2) Social Responsiveness Scale™, Second Edition and the ASRS, or Autism Spectrum Rating Scales.
Neurocognitive Screening Testing
This is where we test your verbal and visual memory, simple and complex attention, cognitive flexibility, processing speed, reaction time, working memory, reasoning, motor speed, psychomotor speed, executive functioning and compare you to age and gender norms to see if you fall in the above average, average, low average, low, or very low range for each category.
Visual and Auditory Tests of Attention
We use the Conners Continuous Performance Test Third EditionTM (Conners CPT 3TM) and Conners Continuous Auditory Test of Attention® (Conners CATA®) to measure performance in areas of inattentiveness, impulsivity, sustained attention, and vigilance to rule out conditions such as Attention-Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (ADHD) and other neurological conditions related to attention. This is particularly crucial as some children who meet the diagnostic criteria for autism may also meet the diagnostic criteria for ADHD.
Clinical Questionnaires
We follow this up with clinical questionnaires to review symptoms of ADHD, emerging concerns related to mood, Behaviour, Adaptivity, etc., to see if there are any underlying factors contributing to your child's symptoms.
Debrief/Feedback Session:
Once all testing and questionnaires are completed, we discuss the results of tests, explain what they mean, talk about if a diagnosis is warranted, and then give you a chance to ask questions.
Report Writing:
The findings of the assessment are composed into a written report with detailed recommendations. We provide detailed reports that can range from 30 to 70 pages in length.
Cost:
$4500-$5000 (price subject to change depending on the number of questionnaires or additional assessments requested). Please note this is an example child autism assessment plan, and your assessment plan can only be finalized after your first meeting with a clinical psychologist.
How Does a Psychoeducational Assessment Help My Child?
Clarity
Understanding the reasons behind your child's struggles can feel therapeutic and like a weight has been lifted. Understanding the problem is the first step to seeking the right solutions.
Interventions
Once you understand your relative strengths and weaknesses you can begin the process of finding supports to help improve your quality of life of your child. This can take the form of reading, writing, and mathematics supports, tutoring, speech-language therapy, and other non-invasive supports such as Neurofeedback for ASD, learning disabilities and ADHD.
Accommodations
A diagnosis can help your child gain access to support in the classroom to help them succeed. This can take the form of an Identification, Placement, and Review Committee (IPRC) Meeting to help create an individualized Educational Plan (IEP) to help a child succeed in the classroom.
Advantage of Working with Neuropotential Clinics
Clinical Intake Appointment:
Our 2500 square-foot facility has 13 foot ceilings to ensure you feel safe and comfortable. We are locatedacross the street from Sheppard-West station and minutes off the 401.
Affordable Pricing:
Assessment plans are created with your input to ensure you only pay for what you need. Most insurance plans cover psychological services so services at the clinic may be reimbursed.
Custom Assessments:
All assessments can be customized based on your needs and the questions you would like answered.
Google Reviews:
Most regulatory colleges do not allow for testimonials as there is no way to verify if they are authentic. Google Reviews allows clients to post on a third party website to ensure each opinion is trusted and true. We are proud to say Neuropotential Clinics is one of the highest rated clinics in Canada.