About Us

The Neurodevelopmental Service within Rise was created to support neurodivergent children and young people and their families. We provide diagnostic assessment for autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We have created a number of information sessions for our webpages, which may be helpful in supporting children and young people as well as signposting information to local and national support.

 

Preschool Neurodevelopmental Service

There are two Preschool services, the Warwickshire Preschool Autism Service (WPAS), and the Coventry Neurodevelopmental Preschool Service.

Assessment always includes information from different professionals. The professionals involved will depend on your child’s needs, but support is always led by one person. Your child’s assessment will include:

  • A medical screen
  • A detailed developmental history
  • Information about their behaviour, interactions, skills, and development in all environments including home and nursery
  • Observations of their play and interactions (this could be via a virtual platform or face-to-face)

 

Further assessment maybe required which could be:

  • Autism Diagnostic Observation Schedule - an assessment tool carried out in a clinic setting

 

School Age Neurodevelopmental Service

The School-Age Neurodevelopmental Team work closely with the Rise colleagues, including Core Specialist Mental Health. They provide assessments for a diagnosis of autism and/or attention deficit disorder or developmental coordination disorder as an additional diagnosis. The team includes speech and language therapists, occupational therapists and psychologists, they also have strong links with paediatricians and psychiatrists.

Most children and young people may not see all of the professionals, but the team may seek advice from their colleagues to help give the best advice. The team members have a high level of training, expertise, and experience in autism and ADHD, and they try to help children, young people, and their parents understand and learn how to support their child.

 

Terminology

Based on feedback from our local community regarding preferred language, we aim to use identity first language such as ‘autistic child/young person/individual/person’. We also aim to use Autism as the preferred term, however due to being a diagnostic service we may at times use the term ‘Autistic Spectrum Disorder’ (ASD) if referring to the medical process of diagnosis. We acknowledge that preferred terms and language may be different for different people and also based on individual preference.
https://www.autism.org.uk/what-we-do/help-and-support/how-to-talk-about-autism

We also use the term ‘neurodiversity’ which describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one "right" way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits. We also use the term ‘neurotypical’, which refers to brain functions, ways of processing information and behaviours which are seen to be most common and also the term ‘neurodivergent’    which refers to behaving, thinking and learning differently to those considered neurotypical, which would include individual and/or groups of people who are autistic, ADHD, or otherwise neurodivergent.

To find out more, please refer to our ‘Information for Neurodivergent people and their families’ at: Dimensions - News (covwarkpt.nhs.uk)

 

Useful links

Coventry and Warwickshire Joint Strategy for Autistic People 2021 - 2026

Coventry's Neurodevelopmental Pathway- a guide for parents (003).pdf [pdf] 1MB

Frequently Asked Questions August 2023.pdf [pdf] 204KB

 

As a service, we aim to be accessible to all experiences, backgrounds and differences. If you feel there are alternative arrangements, we could make to support you to access our material, please contact the team by phone. Contact numbers can be found under ‘Contact Us’ tab.