Autism assessor - is there such a position? Where do I start?

[Leapoffaith00]

There obviously must be - however I can't find a job role explaining the actual position or qualification needed. Looking into assessing (just qualified as a mental health nurse and do not want to peruse this career). Behaviour and assessing behaviour interests me. Attatchment styles etc. Therefore looking at other areas. Not sure how to go about this....
Advice would be appreciated :)

Clinical psychologist, psychiatrist, or I think my DD's speech therapist told me she does them too.

drspouse - thankyou. Ah super qualified then. So interesting but I'm nowhere near as qualified.

You have to do an extra training on top but yes, that's who does them usually.

Action for Aspergers charity has an assessor who is a counsellor who has done additional training to assess for autism privately. In NHS it is more typically a psychiatrist, SALT, psychologist.

HopelesslydevotedtoGu - ah ok thankyou.
I might try contacting some services. Nobody seems to acknowledge emails these days. There are probably so many positions but I have no clue they exist.

In my authority the assement is carried out by education psychologist, specialist teacher and paedritrician. Obviously this is only part of their job.

In my area, when DD was diagnosed 20 years ago, there were two NHS nurses who ran a social skills training course for autistic and Asperger patients. The initial assessment and diagnosis was carried out by child psychiatrists, but the nurses took over from there and administered the course and monitored the improvement in social skill over time. There may be something similar where you are. Why not ask your local NHS health Trust about opportunities?

In our area (happy to PM you if you want to know the health board) autism assessments are done via a multidisciplinary panel that includes nurses (and psychiatrists, OT, SALT etc).

My son's assessment involved him going off with a child psychiatrist for an hour whilst we were interviewed by a nurse about his early childhood and developmental history. But she told me afterwards that they split those two roles 50/50 so half the time it's her doing the child assessment while the psychiatrist does the parent interview. I think she was a learning disability nurse but I can check the paperwork.

They video the child asseSsment part and it gets watched by a team from the panel before a diagnosis is given. Our reports were all written up by the nurse we spoke to.

So nurses definitely can play a big role!

Babdoc thankyou. I will try - not sure who I would need to contact first?
QOFE thankyou - that is good to hear. I'm mental health trained however we have lots of learning disability nurses working on the wards so it may work the other way too. I'm eager to learn more so happy to develop skills. I think nurses are always doing this anyway when they change roles. I would be happy for you to pm me if that's ok. It would be great if it's near to me.