Worried my ds might have Autism and looking for a private assessment. Daphne Keen?

[Alpen]

I've read good things here about Daphne Keen and would appreciate hearing from anyone who's been to her. My impression is that her assessment is based largely on taking a case history. Am wondering how much observation takes place and if there's an opporunity for her to observe the child playing with other children? Can anyone give me any insights? Is she an Autism specialist?

Also any other recommendations gratefully received! Thank you.

electra, she doesn't recommend ABA IIRC, but she DOES recommend the 15-20 hours of intenstive autism specific education which LA's fail to provide and therefore parents CAN win ABA in that context iyswim.

SHe doesn't do an awful lot of child observation. She asks pertinent questions of the parents and treats them like honest sensible humans.

DS was assessed by Daphne Keen about 7 years ago and she recommended occupational therapy - but at that stage, his fine and gross motor skills were more of an issue. She was very calm and as as had mentioned already, she listened to our answers and seemed to work on the basis that we knew our son best.

is it possible to see her without your child being present or does she have to actually lay eyes on him?

I saw her as part of a multidisciplinary assessment 4 years ago (and at subsequent follow-ups), so she had reports from OTs, school, SLTs, caseworkers etc but she spoke to us for a long time about our DD (who was out of the room for most of the time) but I'd imagine she'd have to see something of the child. Worth ringing up to check the procedure for seeing her privately.

She is the dev paed in our area so I know very many who have seen her- I've never heard of her suggesting ABA to anyone (which is not to say she hasn't) and she is one of the foremost child dev experts.

Alpen

Have you looked that the 12 criteria that are considered and the possible minimum of 6 criteria required for a diagnosis of ASD. And how each or which of these criteria may apply to your child, and which of the support options are best suited based on these criteria.
Have a look at Identification and Evaluation of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders
Criteria for 299.00: table of Diagnostic Criteria for 299.00:
and Management of Children With Autism Spectrum Disorders

Thanks everyone for your responses - all very useful.

Dolfrog, thanks so much for the links.They give a lot more detail than anything I've come across so far and are very timely as I've been thinking a lot about my son's first assessment some time ago. They didn't give him a diagnosis and seem to be taking for a 'wait and see' approach in my opinion. I've since been wondering about the screening tool they used and whether it was in fact the most appropriate - so although I've only just skimmed the articles, I know they'll be very helpful. I wasn't able to access the 2nd one though (Criteria for 299.00). Is it on the same website?

Alpen the second link is to a table which is a link included in the first article, and opens in a new window, I have probably mucked up the link lol.

Alpen, did you end up contacting Daphne Keen? This is something I'm considering after 13 months into the assessment we are going to be waiting at least another 6 months to see the Psych! My daughter is nearly 13 so time is not on our side (as all the professionals keep reminding us)!

We saw her, she is a specialist in asd, assessment is 2 hours of observation and case history. No interaction with other children, but maybe you can speak to her secretary about that.

She recommended ABA to us, but one of the less traditional methods i.e more VB due to young age of ds.

the only thing i would be careful of is that some proffessionals dont accept private dx as fact :(

lisad, that amazes me, do you know why that is?

because some truely believe that if you have paid the doctor enough they will say what you want to hear

What did you think to her, MangoMonster? Are you glad you went? As we live in Rotherham I was looking at Digby Tantam as he's in Sheffield but he only sees 1 person per week and has a long waiting list of at least 3 - 4 months. My daughter appears to be complex and is likely to have co morbids from what I've been told. I don't really trust our local CAMHS to get it right unfortunately. My DD has recently attempted imaginative play at the age of nearly 13 with her 4 year old brother and only under her terms. They are saying that this now complicates things!! WTF!! She should gave done that 11 years ago!!! she also passed the theory of mind test which is further confusing things even though she scored ridiculously high on the Gillberg test! She's really struggling at the moment and it's impacting the family so much I can't let things carry on like this for her, bless her. If one more "professional" says this should have been picked when she was younger I'll bloody punch em lol

I thought she would do but hoped it might be shorter than Digby Tantams! It's more about seeing someone who is experienced and will be able to figure out what's going on. Xx

I thought she was very good and we only really saw to make sure that we were right to have concerns and to be doing something about them now rather than the wait and see approach.

I agree that what she appears to do at the assessment is not ground breaking but she is very highly trained with immense practical knowledge so for her a diagnosis is probably more straightforward than for some other professionals.

She did only give a working diagnosis as ds has visual problems too and is so young, she also mentioned that he is atypical with regards to his apparent interest in communication and language. I thought she was spot on with her recommendations and observations considering it was only 2 hours.

It took us only 2 weeks to get an appointment.

Decide beforehand what you want to get out of the appointment and discuss it with her secretary, then you'll have a better idea of whether it's right for you.

We went to see Daphne Keen a couple of weeks ago. I thought she was excellent and we went a long for the same reasons as MangoMonster - DS1 has AS.

She did observe him and asked him quite a few questions though she mostly directly them at me. We had already submitted reports from our OT and SALT.

She flagged up a couple of areas that need immediate attention and suggested that when he is 6 to see an Ed Psych to for further intervention - he may have ADD too.

She is incredibly experienced and also clearly very fond of AS kids which made what could have been a horrible experience into a very positive one.

Her cv and some papers she has written can be found on the internet if you are interested in more background.