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Lady Joanna Thornhill (Endowed) Primary School

Learning for the Head, Heart and Hand

I think my child has autism. What can you do to support?

Autism is a neurodevelopmental condition. To arrive at a diagnosis, health professionals will collate evidence about a child’s social communication skills, repetitive or restrictive interests and sensory differences so that a judgement against specific health criteria can be made. 

 

School can refer children for assessment for autism and the routes for this are different depending on the child’s age. For under 8s, school will refer to the local Community Paediatrics team, who will contact you about an appointment. There is a significant wait time for this at present. Autism is not typically diagnosed at this appointment. Instead, the paediatrician will observe the child and discuss with parents, before making a judgement about whether the child should move onto the autism pathway. 

 

For over 8s, referrals are made via NELFT who will undertake initial triage of the request and typically ask for follow-up information from both school and parents. These forms are lengthy and take some time to collate. This information will then be used by NELFT to make a decision about whether or not to accept a child onto the autism pathway.  

 

The autism assessment pathways both have very long wait times, with NELFT currently informing parents they may be on the list for up to three years. Typically, the child is then invited to a longer ‘joint communication clinic’ where a highly specialised speech and language therapist and a paediatrician work together to make a diagnosis, or not. 

 

Once a child is on the pathway, the school will be advised to implement autism strategies if they are not doing so already. 

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