Autism
At Building Minds, we have a multi-disciplinary team of experienced clinicians who have specialised in working with children and adults with Autism Spectrum Conditions (ASC). We are referring to conditions instead of disorders as our team advocate and understand that autistic people are on a spectrum with strengths and weaknesses. Our team of clinicians are considered leading experts in this field of autism and we pride ourselves of using the gold standard in the autism assessment process.
Our lead clinician Dr Camilla Nguyen, Clinical Psychologist, has a wealth of experience in this area of neurodiversity having completed both her masters and doctorate thesis in autism and worked across different settings supporting our neurodiverse community (paediatric, community mental health intellectual disability, sexual health, ministry of education). Camilla has a special interest in assessing and working therapeutically with girls and women with autism. Camilla has been interviewed in both newspaper and the news about her expertise in this area. She regularly runs workshop and training in this area for professionals.
We have a lot of experiencing diagnosing girls and women with autism and will ask some additional questions during our developmental interview and ADOS assessment to ensure we are capturing the difference in presentation for girls and women with autism. It is well known that girls and women are excellent at masking difficulties associated with ASC.
If you are unsure an assessment is right for you, please feel free to contact us for a chat and we will gladly guide you.
Depending on the age and other factors, your child might see our pediatrician or one of the psychologists for the assessment. We are currently only offering this service for children from age of 5 to 17 years old.
Below is a breakdown of the process:
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Screening questionnaires: for autism and other behaviours (parents, teacher, and child if suitable). Teacher needs to complete a school form, and parents need to complete a detailed developmental history form respectively. All these forms need to be completed prior to the in-person session.
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Initial Assessment: Psychologist/Paediatrician will meet with the child and parents to discuss current concerns and go through developmental, family, education, social, and behavioural history.
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Clinical interview: Interview with parents (60-90 mins)
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Child clinical interview and observation: Using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (60-90 mins)
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School liaison
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Feedback session to discuss the results
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Report writing
It would also be helpful for us to have access to past educational (e.g. end of term reports) and medical reports to aid the assessment process.
Cost: $1800*
*All prices are inclusive of GST.Additional cost:
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School observation. This will be discussed with you beforehand if we require further information.
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Medication review (see fee section under Specialist Pediatric Specialist for follow-up session cost)
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The psychologist will meet with you and your parent(s)/caregiver (if possible). The reason to involve parent is that there need to evidence of autistic traits in childhood (prior of age of 8). We understand that this might not always be possible to have parent involvement. If this is the case, please let us know and we can think of another informant (e.g. sibling, partner). To meet the gold standard, we are only offering in-person assessments.
Below is a breakdown of the process:
Screening questionnaires: Autism, mood disorders and developmental history form prior to the in-person session.
Initial Assessment: During this session, we will discuss your current concerns and go through developmental, family, social, educational and work history. It would also be helpful if your parent or someone else who knows you well (friend, partner) attend the session. If we at this stage think that another condition might explain your current concerns better than autism we will discuss with you at this point. If this is the case, we will only charge for the cost of the initial assessment ($330) and stop the assessment at this stage.
Clinical interview and observation: Over 1-2 sessions (up to 2 hours). The assessment includes using a semi-structured interview protocol to cover autism symptoms in detail and the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (if needed), which is an assessment of behaviour and social interaction between you and the examiner. In some occasions, we might have an observer in the room for the purpose of writing notes and scoring.
Information from whānau: The psychologist will follow up with an in-person or online session with your parent/caregiver (if required).
Feedback session to discuss the results
Report writing
We would appreciate access to any past medical or educational reports (e.g. end of term school reports). Again, this is not always necessary, but this might be needed to if we don't sufficient information from parent interview, developmental background.
Cost: $1800*
*All prices are inclusive of gst. For more complex cases, we might need to charge extra (based on our hourly rate $210 incl gst).
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