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Services
An assessment is a careful description, not a final answer. For young people whose attentional, social, sensory or regulatory patterns are part of a clinical question, an accurate description matters — because it informs the school accommodations, the NDIS planning, the family understanding and the medical management that follow.
ADHD and autism assessments in this pathway look at how a child thinks, attends, plays, regulates, relates and learns. Where physical health is part of the picture — hypermobility, POTS, post-viral patterns, sleep disturbance, sensory processing differences, prior trauma — the interaction between those layers and the developmental picture is held explicitly. A presentation that looks like inattentive ADHD on the surface can be that, or it can be sleep deprivation, autonomic dysregulation, autistic burnout, anxiety, or a combination. The assessment exists to make that picture as clear as it can be.
The work is done by clinicians with formal qualifications in paediatric assessment, using validated tools and structured information from the family and (where appropriate) the school. The output is a written report and a feedback session, both designed to be useful for the people making decisions about the young person — parents, schools, NDIS planners, treating clinicians.
This service is for children and adolescents where ADHD, autism, or both are being considered as part of the clinical picture — including young people whose previous assessments have been inconclusive, whose physical health makes interpretation more complex, or whose families need an assessment that holds the developmental and physical pictures together.
The clinician reads the existing picture before formal assessment begins. Previous assessments, medical history, family observations, school information where appropriate, prior diagnoses. The aim is for the assessment to add to the picture rather than to repeat it.
Parent or carer report is collected through validated tools and structured interview. Information from school, where appropriate and consented, sits alongside. The young person's own perspective is included in a way that fits their age and capacity.
The young person attends one or more sessions for direct clinical assessment. The format is paced for the child, with sensory and communication adaptations where needed. The aim is for the assessment to see how the child actually presents, not how the child performs under maximum compliance.
Findings are read across the broader clinical picture — physical health, sleep, sensory, trauma, anxiety, family context. A diagnosis is not declared from one test; it is reached through the integration of the whole picture against current diagnostic criteria.
A written report sets out what was found, what was not found, what is uncertain, and what the practical implications are. A separate feedback session walks the family through the report. Where the young person is old enough, they receive feedback directly and in a way that fits their development.
The report is held inside the biio. record so the rest of the paediatric team and the family can build on the same picture. Where ongoing reassessment, paediatric psychiatry, or other specialist input is appropriate, that referral is made through the same record.
When the assessment work is going well, the family leaves with a clearer understanding of how this young person works — what is consistent across settings, what is reactive to environment, what is masked, what is developmental and what is contextual. Decisions about school, medication, support funding and clinical care can be made with the picture in view rather than in the absence of it.
An assessment does not change the child. It does not, by itself, secure NDIS funding, school support or a particular intervention pathway — those decisions are made by the relevant body, not by the assessment. What an accurate assessment can do is replace impression with description, and in a presentation where decades of misreading neurodivergence as personal failure or behaviour problem is common, that often matters more than it looks.