Paediatric Autism Assessment Service

Who is the commissioned service for paediatric assessments?

Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust is the commissioned service for paediatric assessment and diagnosis. The service sits within the Community Paediatric Medical Services based at New Street Health Centre.

What does the service do?

The Autism Spectrum Disorder Assessment Team (ASDAT) offers a specialist assessment and diagnosis service for children and young people under the age of 18.

As a specialist medical assessment service, we are unable to offer support, training or interventions for autism. Our role is to focus on assessing the child’s difficulties against the DSM-5 criteria for diagnosis and to rule out any other medical factors which may be causing these.

Young people 18+

Once a young person reaches their 18th birthday, they will be discharged from the paediatric assessment service and their care transferred to the adult assessment service. For young people aged 18 or above, please refer to the adult assessment service at The Manygates Clinic, Wakefield.

Accessing the service

Post submission

  • A text message will be sent to parent/carer confirming receipt of the referral
  • The referral will then journey through an administration and triage process (Please allow 30 days for this)
  • The team will write to the parent/carer to accept/decline the request for assessment once stage two is completed)

Referral guidelines

Details on how to refer is available along with the relevant paperwork on our Autism Referral Hub using the link below:

Autism Referral Hub | Barnsley Hospital NHS Foundation Trust

NB: Please do not save blank referrals to your systems as templates. A new pack should be downloaded each time to avoid using obsolete paperwork.

Who should be referred

Referral Criteria

  • Child is registered with a Barnsley commissioned GP
  • The young person is under the age of 18
  • An active Early Help Assessment (EHA) is in place and reasonable time allowed to fully address the child’s needs (at least one review cycle)
  • An existing diagnosis is not in place
  • Social communication and interaction difficulties present which are felt to not be better explained by something else

Updated:  September 2024

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