School-Age Autism Diagnostic Assessments
You may have been told by your pediatrician that your child is missing developmental milestones. Or maybe, your child has been struggling in school, either socially or academically and you are worried something deeper is going on. No matter why you are here, the most important thing is your love for your child and your desire to see them grow into a happy, healthy adult.
How We Can Help
If you have been worried about your child struggling you may be thinking of the various neurodevelopmental disorders and whether your child has one of them. The Family Guidance and Therapy Center offers Educational / Neuropsychological Evaluations for ADHD, Dyslexia and Autism for children up to 16 years of age.
A comprehensive evaluation looks at a child’s:
- cognitive abilities (verbal and visual)
- academic skills (reading, writing, math)
- executive functioning
- processing
- memory (visual and verbal)
- personality
- over-excitabilities
- creativity
- mood and behavior
What Comes Next?
If your child is diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder they may benefit from interventions specifically for that problem. At the Family Guidance and Therapy Center we offer a wide range of autism spectrum treatments, including Relationship Development Intervention (RDI) that will help your child become the best he was meant to be!
Common Questions
How Does It Work?
The multidisciplinary team that will perform the evaluation consists of our Psychologist, our Occupational Therapist (OT), and our Speech Language Therapist (SLT).
Our Psychologist will administer most of the assessments, including cognitive, developmental, and social-emotional measures. Our SLT will administer the language screening assessment, and provide feedback to our Psychologist.
Our OT will score and review results of the sensory processing questionnaires, and provide feedback to our Psychologist. Additional academic, language, sensory-motor, and neurodevelopmental assessments, beyond basic screening, are available if requested.
Finally, you will participate in a feedback meeting. Our psychologist will integrate all of your child’s scores and feedback into an comprehensive written diagnostic report.
How Long Does it Take?
The assessment itself will take 5 hours for the various professionals to evaluate the child.
You will generally receive a full written report with test results, relevant diagnoses, and recommendations within two weeks of completing testing.
How Much Does it Cost?
The full evaluation, including written report, will cost $3100*.
If you have health insurance, there is a possibility that all or part of your psych testing is covered.
* Every diagnostic test is specifically tailored to the person, funding source, and needs of the individual. Please be advised that if there are additional questions beyond ASD (e.g. ADHD, Learning Disabilities, Neuropsych Testing) that need to be answered, additional testing may be required which will add to the cost. These are the flat rates for Autism Diagnostic Assessments. Any additional costs will be discussed with parents/clients first. Due to Covid-19, procedures may differ from what is detailed on the website. Please give us a call and we can customize a plan that will meet your needs.
It is our goal to make this process as easy as possible for you, especially when it comes to paying for an assessment. We are prepared to accept insurance for all evaluations and will work with your insurance provider to help you qualify. We are in-network with several health insurance companies including Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, BlueShield of CA. This is list is growing every day
We can also check your benefits for out of network costs. If you decide to use your out of network benefits, we will bill your insurance for you. No superbills or waiting on reimbursements.
Technical Details
School-Age Diagnostic Measures (ages 6 – 16)
Direct Assessment 4 Hours
Caregiver Interview 2 Hours
Caregiver Questionnaires 1 Hour
- Monteiro Interview Guidelines for Diagnosing the Autism Spectrum, Second Edition (MIDGAS-2): Diagnostic Interview Provides evaluators with an efficient method of systematically gathering and organizing the information needed to diagnose autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in children, adolescents, and adults.
- Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule, Second Edition (ADOS-2) This semi-structured assessment can be used to evaluate almost anyone suspected of having autism—from toddlers to adults, from children with no speech to adults who are verbally fluent. The ADOS-2 consists of various activities that allow observation of social and communication behaviors related to the diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder. These activities provide interesting, standard contexts in which interaction can occur.
- Checklist for Autism Spectrum Disorder (CASD): The CASD rates 30 symptoms of autism, covering six domains: Problems with social interaction, Perseveration, Somatosensory disturbance, Atypical communication and development, Mood, and Problems with attention and safety. Symptoms are scored as present or absent based on information drawn from various sources, including teacher, caregiver, parent, observation of the child, and available records.
- Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children, Second Edition Normative Update (KABC-2 NU): The KABC-II NU approach provides insights into how a child receives and processes information, helping pinpoint cognitive strengths and weaknesses. When an ability/achievement comparison is needed, the KABC-II NU is linked to the Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition (KTEA-3).
- Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals-5 Screening Test (CELF-5) helps determine if a child needs further testing to identify a language disorder. Provides screening for morphology, syntax, semantics, and pragmatic skills.
- Clinical Assessment of Pragmatics (CAPs): Video based. Provides comprehensive information on pragmatic language skills and social language development of children (ages 7 and older) and young adults.
Parent / Teacher Questionnaires:
Parents and teachers will be asked to complete questionnaires about the school-age child / adolescent and bring them to the evaluation.
- Adaptive Behavior Assessment System, Third Edition (ABAS-3, Parent Form ages 5 – 21) Provides a complete assessment of adaptive skills across the lifespan.
- Social Responsiveness Scale™, Second Edition (SRS-2) Identifies the presence and severity of social impairment within the autism spectrum and differentiates it from that which occurs in other disorders.
- Behavior Assessment System for Children, Third Edition (BASC-3): helps with understanding the behaviors and emotions of children and adolescents. We include Parent Rating Scales (PRS), Self-Report of Personality (SRP), and Structured Developmental History (SDH).
- Sensory Processing Measure™ (SPM, ages 7 - 12) OR Adolescent/Adult Sensory Profile (ages 11 – 17): provides a screening for sensory processing difficulties.
