ADOS Autism Assessment UK

Before we agree to undertake a full autism assessment which includes the ADOS, we invite individuals/parents/carers to complete a questionnaire providing information about their concerns as well as some background information.

If after taking our FREE initial questionnaire we feel there’s enough evidence to warrant a full autism assessment, you will be invited for a further discussion.

In line with NICE guidelines, our private autism assessment is carried out by a multidisciplinary team and consists of four elements …..

ADOS – Face to face assessment using the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule.
DISCO or ADI-R – A Virtual meeting to take a comprehensive developmental history, based on the Diagnostic Interview for Social and Communication Disorders or the Austism Diagnostic Interview – Revised.
Face to face speech and language assessment. (young people only)
Review of information from education/work and/or other third parties.

For a child assessment – detailed information is gathered from their school or other third party setting.

For an adult assessment – detailed information is also gathered from other settings such as the individual’s workplace, family and/or friends.

What is ADOS – Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule?

The ADOS is a standardised tool used as part of our private autism assessment. It provides a highly accurate picture of current Autism Spectrum Disorder related symptoms, based on real-time observations.

What does the ADOS Observe?

A fully trained member of our team will observe the individual, undertaking a range of structured and unstructured tasks under controlled circumstances.

We are observing and scoring 3 key things:

Social communication
Interaction
Repetitive behaviours

Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule – Modules

The ADOS consists of 5 modules suitable for assessing toddlers through to adults and takes approximately 40-60 minutes. The module chosen is dependent on the individual’s age and language skills. Each module is made up of a set of standardised scenarios/tasks.

Toddler Module – for children between 12 and 30 months of age who do not consistently use phrase speech. This module uses entirely non-verbal scenarios for scoring.

Module 1 – for children 31 months and older who do not consistently use phrase speech. Most scenarios require moving around the room and interacting with objects.

Module 2 – for children of any age who use phrase speech but are not verbally fluent. Most scenarios require moving around the room and interacting with objects.

Module 3 – for verbally fluent children and young adolescents. Scenarios involve playing with age-appropriate toys and can be conducted while sitting at a table.

Module 4 – for verbally fluent older adolescents and adults. This is more conversational regarding daily living experiences.

Example Task for Module, 2, 3 & 4

We might lay out a pattern puzzle that provides a template for your child to place blocks on. We will intentionally not provide enough blocks to fully complete the task, but will let your child know that we have more blocks available. We will then observe how you or your child handles the dilemma and evaluate.

Do they make a request for the extra blocks?
Point and scream?
Refuse to continue?

Each reaction is a scorable behaviour.

Child assessments can be difficult to watch, particularly for parents as you naturally want to provide assistance and make things smoother. However, the point of the test is to see how the child does without your assistance and for this reason, it is sometimes better that parents are not in the room.

Example of Module 3 Activities (verbally fluent children and young adolescents)

Construction Task
Make-Believe Play
Joint Interactive Play
Demonstration Task
Description of a Picture
Telling a Story From a Book
Cartoons
Conversation and Reporting
Emotions
Social Difficulties and Annoyance
Break
Friends, Relationships, and Marriage
Loneliness
Creating a Story

For older children and adolescents, we might use structured conversations or create social scenarios, like eating a meal out. In many of them, we will intentionally present minor obstacles and see how they cope with them.

The modules cover a range of behavioural and cognitive issues, and therefore not all modules are used. We may decide to switch to another module if the one originally selected didn’t match the individual’s abilities closely enough for an accurate score.

Standardised administration, coding and scoring

Each module has its own assessment booklet, which structures the administration and guides us through the processes of coding and scoring.

It’s important to note that the Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule is part of a wider assessment and can not be used alone to make an autism diagnosis. See below for more information on the autism assessment tools used as part of our private autism assessment.

Autism Assessment Tools – DISCO & ADI-R

Autism Assessment Tools – Language Screening