What makes an Excellent Autism Assessor?
- therapistkristina
- May 11
- 2 min read
What makes an excellent autism assessor? HINT: it’s not the letters after their name & it’s not the training they received.
KNOW AUTISM OUTSIDE THE LINES OF PRESCRIBED CRITERIA. This means confidence and risk taking to describe autism’s presence or absence with a dynamic and wide lens. Misdiagnoses often occur without this skill. Training isn’t enough.
SUPERB WRITING SKILS. Often overlooked requirement. Without this, there is a huge limiting factor for an excellent assessment. Bland assessments with templates do not create connection to the client, and they feel this.
RECOGNIZING & DESCRIBING NEUROLOGICAL RESPONSES. An excellent assessor can hear Auditory Processing Disorder symptoms, Demand Avoidance and needs for autonomy, Spatial Recognition activation, Echolalia, needs to be non-verbal, nuances of shut downs and melt downs, for example. An excellent assessor can write the symptoms out clearly in the report with examples the person shared and why-how those symptoms are consistent with a neurological response. And of course, recommendations for each.
Being an excellent assessor means more than letters after a name, more than the tool being utilized, & more than training.
CONDITIONS OF THE ASSESSMENT. Are there fluorescent lights? Are breaks encouraged and asserted by the assessor? Are processing and communication differences honored? Does the assessor know how to navigate communication that differs from their own without a pathological lens? Does the assessor make the themselves available AFTER the evaluation session for the client to share additional information? An excellent assessor is flexible, and adapts to client’s needs for communicating because their communication is the data for their assessment. This is more than a “skills”, it’s a way of being.
My clients and others often report not encountering these essentials with their autism test. I often give tests to client who want a second test completed with these elements.
Contact me with any questions, free consultations!
AUTISM EVALUATIONS
THERAPY
CONSULTATION for CLINICIANS and ASSESSORS.
Comments