Adult Autism Assessments – Ages 18+

What is Autism Spectrum Disorder?

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental condition that can affect sensory processing, social communication and relatedness, executive functioning more broadly, and emotional and behavioural regulation. Typically, others and/or the Autistic individual can first observe and experience differences in their development early on in life such as in their speech, motor movements, and coordination. However, ASD positively and negatively impacts the individual throughout the lifespan.

Autistic folks more often have heightened sensory awareness such as:

Feeling distressed or easily overwhelmed by loud noises, bright lights, certain fabrics, level of proximity to others.
Overly seek sensory input such as repetitive body movements, listening to loud music, smelling strong scents

Autistic folks can also differ in communication with others such as finding small-talk daunting, wanting to overly talk about specific topics, preferring direct/blunt communication, and repeating certain words or phrases. They also might have differences in non-verbal communication such as preferring to avoid eye contact, stimming (i.e., repetitive physical movements or vocalisations as a form of self-stimulation) while engaging with others, and expressing emotions differently with their body and face. Autistic individuals also may find more comfort and security in routines, patterns and preferences of behaviour (e.g., eating the same foods each day), and tend to struggle with adjusting to change. Many Autistic individuals also have special interests, which can be described as heightened interest, passions for, strengths in, or hyperfocus on certain topics, people, sports, hobbies, and/or fandoms. This is not a complete description of what it means to be Autistic. We included resources below.

What is involved in the assessment?

We hope clients walk away from the assessment with more understanding about themselves, what strengths they have as an Autistic individual, more of a pull to feel connected to the broader Autistic community, what challenges they have navigating this world as an Autistic person, and resources to access and direct their support circle to. Additionally, as part of the assessment, Kay Vinova, R. Psych., will determine if you meet criteria for other common co-occurring psychiatric disorders such as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, an eating disorder, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder with the exception of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and Learning Disorders. The assessments for ADHD and Learning Disorders are quite extensive, can be rather costly, and may be worth it for each individual. However, Kay Vinova does not offer ADHD and Learning Disorder assessments at this time. They will screen you for ADHD and Learning Disorders, and will let you know in the feedback session whether you are recommended to complete more testing/assessment for ADHD and/or Learning Disorder and will provide recommendations of where to seek more testing.

The assessment involves 3 to 5, 50-minute assessment sessions, an interview where Kay will meet with either a family member, a romantic partner, or a close friend, completing several self-report measures, and a feedback session. Additionally, Kay asks you to complete a word document about background information ahead of the assessment. During the feedback session, Kay will share the results of the assessment, provide a summary report, and discuss recommendations. Kay also charges about 3 to 4 hours for report writing.

Notably, Kay Vinova uses a neuro-affirming approach to ASD assessments. To help explain what this approach means, let’s first define some terms.

Neurodiversity is a term that was first coined by Autistic Australian sociologist Judy Singer. Neurodiversity refers to the infinite neuro-cognitive variability within the human population. It recognizes that each person has a unique nervous system with various abilities, disabilities, and needs.

Neurodivergent is an umbrella term to describe any person (or group of people) whose brains develop, learn, and/or behave differently than a “typical” person. The neurodivergent community includes but is not limited to Autistic folks, people with psychiatric disorders such as ADHD, Tourette’s Syndrome, learning disorders, Schizophrenia, or Bipolar Disorder.

A neuro-affirming approach to treatment and assessment means that the provider/clinician is shifting away from the traditional medical approach to mental health, which is to over-pathologize, diagnose, and treat disorders while more often placing the provider/clinician as the expert. A neuro-affirming clinician recognizes that there are differences in all of our biology and celebrates these differences, that there are diverse profiles of Autism, that the client is the best expert on their experience, and recognizes that the traditional approach to assessment can be discriminatory and potentially harmful and traumatising. A clinician using this approach sees Autism not merely as a diagnostic “label” but rather a core aspect of a client’s identity.

To ensure Kay is truly using a neuro-affirming approach, they do not use the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule (ADOS-2) assessment tool with adults. The ADOS-2 has historically been heavily critiqued by researchers, clinicians, and most importantly- members of the Autistic Community. To read more about the critiques and clinician recommendations for alternative approaches to ASD assessments, please read Is This Autism?, Unmasking Autism, and The Adult Autism Assessment Handbook: A Neurodiversity Affirmative Approach.

The cost of the assessment varies as it depends on how many assessment sessions are required to complete the assessment. Typically, the assessment is 8 to 11 billable hours. We charge $225.00 for each billable hour, which means the range of costs for this assessment is $1800 to $2475

If you want to inquire more about what is involved in the ASD assessment or get on the wait list, please contact us.

Resources:

For the books listed above, we’ve provided links to various online retailers to give you all the information you might need to buy local! For example, Venus Envy can order in any of these titles on request.