Social Communication and Autism Spectrum Service

We are a Tier 4 national service for children with a suspected Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), who do not have an intellectual disability. The service lead is Dr Ruth Garcia-Rodriguez and the multi-disciplinary team includes clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, specialist speech and language therapists, assistant psychologist and undergraduate psychology students.

Our clinic was previously known as the Social Communication Disorders Clinic, under the leadership of Professor David Skuse. We work closely with the Neurodevelopmental Assessment Clinic at GOSH, who carry out autism assessments for children with intellectual disability, and with other teams within the Psychology and Mental Health Service at GOS. This helps us to tailor our assessments to a child’s individual needs and profile.

The clinic provides comprehensive assessments of complex cases of suspected Autism Spectrum in children in mainstream education. Children are often referred to this service if they have a number of neurodevelopmental, neuropsychiatric or mental health difficulties and where diagnostic clarity is required.

The aims of the service are to determine the diagnosis (if any), and to make recommendations for treatment or further management (for example, within the educational setting). In addition we provide psycho-education groups for children and young people and their families called PEGASUS. The aim of these groups is to enhance children’s and parents' understanding of autism and what it means to them.