Our Autism Services
Autism is known as a spectrum condition, which means that it affects each person differently.
The 'spectrum' of autism refers to the breadth of difference in how autism presents itself across the population, from people of low to high intelligence and from those who may be affected only a little by their autism to those who may be very much affected. Despite these wide-ranging differences, certain core characteristics are shared by everyone who has autism. These are known as the Triad of Impairments and refer to significant difficulties in the following areas:
- Social interaction
- Social communication
- Social imagination
People who have autism also commonly have hyper or hypo sensitivities to sensory stimuli.
Terminology
As a service, we generally use the term 'autism spectrum condition' as the diagnostic term for people whose difficulties place them on the autism spectrum. You may hear a number of other terms in use and this can sometimes be confusing. These include Asperger's Syndrome, High-Functioning Autism, Classic Autism and Childhood Autism, to name but a few.
The most recent diagnostic criteria have moved away from breaking autism down into different categories and instead use a single umbrella term in recognition that, regardless of level of functioning, people who have autism all struggles with similar 'core' skills (see above).
As a result, the term Autism Spectrum Condition (ASC) or simply 'autism' is used nowadays to describe everyone on the spectrum.
Our Autism Team
We have a team of highly qualified specialist practitioners, ready to offer a range of tried-and-tested services to children and young people, adults and families. We have been refining our work in this field over a 20 year period. During this time, we have been key innovators in community service provision and research. For the last 9 years we have been providing services to the NHS, where we won awards for service transformation and re-design, clinical excellence and family support.
Our clinicians have a number of specialisms in addition to autism in areas such as child health psychology and feeding disorders, neuropsychology, attachment disorder, learning disabilities, challenging behaviour and forensic psychology. Our team includes clinical and counselling psychologists, occupational therapists, speech and language therapists, specialist teachers and counsellors. All are trained and experienced autism practitioners.
For further information about our autism services, please email us at
[email protected] or telephone us on (01785) 748447