About our Assessments
Psychological Assessments Information and Guidance
Optional Screening Appointment
We offer an optional screening appointment to help if you are unsure whether it would be of benefit to have a full diagnostic assessment, or where you are unsure what support might best meet the needs of you or your child. This is a one hour, online appointment and prior to our discussion, we will ask you to complete and return some questionnaires. Following the appointment, we will then write a summary letter, which can be used to support a referral to NHS Services or other provider, or if you would like to, you can continue to a full assessment with us.
How are Park Psychology Service’s Assessments NICE Guideline Compliant?
- Assessments have gold standard, evidence based tools at their heart.
- The team gather information from different settings (such as school, after-school club, or college), with your consent. For adults, this may include talking to any significant partners/family with your consent to help get a full picture.
- We work as a multidisciplinary team, meaning that we seek the opinion and guidance of more than one clinician.
- Clinicians who work with Park Psychology are experienced and qualified who understand neurodivergence, such as Autism, ADHD and also understand those who mask. We are also LQBTQ+ affirmative. Our clinicians are members of their respective regulatory bodies and work in accordance with their professional guidelines.
- The team work together to consider other explanations, and differential diagnoses.
A Neuroaffirmative Approach
A fundamental part of the Park Psychology approach is the understanding that neurodivergent minds are a different neurotype, and that being autistic or having ADHD does not mean that there is anything ‘wrong’ with the person. Collectively, we benefit from different brains and different ways of seeing the world. How boring life would be if we all understood things in the same way!
A neuroaffirmative approach does not in any way minimise or ignore the challenges people may experience. We seek to understand the whole person through our assessment process, including the person’s strengths and hopes as well as validating and highlighting the challenges they may experience. We know that these challenges often arise because the world is not always designed to nurture neurodivergence and difference.
We use identity-first language by default in order to reflect the preferences of most neurodivergent people. This means that we will refer to a person as ‘being autistic’ rather than as ‘being a person with autism’ (an example of person-first language). This reflects the idea that autism is an important part of a person’s identity. We are continually striving to improve the experience of people seeking to understand themselves through a neurodevelopmental assessment. We hope you will find our service to be a validating and affirming experience, we are here to support you through your assessment and identification journey. Please do get in touch if you have any further questions.