About Our Neurodiversity Assessments

Our comprehensive adult neurodiversity assessments are designed to explore your sensory, cognitive, and socio-emotional profile in detail. Together, we will determine whether your experiences align with autism, ADHD and/or related diagnoses. In our assessment process, we take care to account for high-masking, multiply-neurodivergent, complex and other less common presentations. We will also perform a full psychodiagnostic assessment, evaluating any co-occurring mental health conditions.

As part of the process, we will explore different areas of your life and history, taking care to identify both strengths and areas of challenge. We will consider the impacts of being undiagnosed and how this may have shaped your life experiences. 

We don't believe in just "checking boxes" to arrive at a diagnosis. We believe an assessment should be a precious opportunity to tell your story fully, to feel heard, and to put words on your unique set of experiences. Our goal is to help you gain an understanding of your profile, empowering you with insights and personalized recommendations. 

Our approach to assessment aims to be neurodiversity-affirming and non-pathologizing: we recognize and celebrate each individual's set of experiences as a normal part of the diversity of human existence.

  • The structure of our assessments designed to be flexible and personalized. We can adapt to your specific needs in preferences, for examples by using fewer questionnaires, including more testing, or relying more heavily on written communication over oral communication.

    Because we rely heavily on interviewing, our assessments tend involve more face-to-face session time than many other assessment models (7-10 hours, as compared to 2-5 hours for most assessment models). 

    The main advantage is that we can explore the different facets of your life in greater depth and focus on your internal experiences, not just externally observable behaviours. In our experience, this approach is helpful in accurately diagnosing individuals who are very high masking, those with atypical presentations, and those with complex profiles where co-occuring conditions may mask each others. For many, this is a unique opportunity to gain a bigger-picture perspective on your life and experiences, which can enable you to see new patterns and gain helpful insights. 

    The main disadvantage is that this type of assessment is more time- and resource-intensive than an assessment that relies more heavily on other tools. This type of assessment is not appropriate for those who have low verbal communication fluency.

    We do not use some of the commonly-used 'diagnostic' tests for autism such as the ADOS-2 or the ADI-R because they are widely considered not to be neurodiversity-affirming, and because they may not capture the complexity of experiences of high-masking individuals.

Assessment Process

Our assessments are completed over the course of a few sessions lasting 60-120 minutes each. The length of the assessment depends on a variety of factors, including how frequently we schedule assessment sessions. It could be a couple of weeks, or a couple of months. We will try our best to adjust to your needs and preferences. 

An assessment involves a personalized combination of the following:

Interviewing

1

We will spend a number of hours talking in detail about your history and experiences in various facets of your life. Our assessment leans most heavily on these interviews, as our goal is to understand your inner world as best as we can. Interviewing typically takes place over a few sessions.

Questionnaires

2

We will send you several questionnaires to complete at home, in order to facilitate collecting information about different parts of your life. This will help orient, streamline and complete the collection of information, complementing interviews. Questionnaires also allow us to compare your answers to statistically-defined norms, which can give us interesting insights.

Review of Notes and Documents

3

We will take time to review any notes you may want to share with us between sessions, as well as any relevant documents (such as report cards from childhood, job performance reviews or previous assessment reports). 

Cognitive Testing

4

In some cases, it may be helpful to complete some tests in-session to help us better understand how your brain processes information. For example, we might use tests that help us understand the strength of your attention and impulse control, or the ways in which you process non-verbal communication. Intelligence testing is sometimes recommended in order to confirm intellectual giftedness or to identify areas of intellectual strengths and weaknesses.

Some tests can be performed at no additional cost. However, an additional $300 fee applies for IQ testing. 

Feedback

5

At the end of the process, we will meet to review the data and conclusions from your psychological assessment. During this session, we will walk you through the data collected and conclusions, highlighting key insights about your strengths, challenges, and overall profile. We’ll discuss any diagnoses, if applicable, and explore how the findings relate to your experiences and goals.

Documentation

6

We will consolidate a summary of the assessment process, findings and recommendations into a report, summary or diagnostic letter that will be sent to you after the final payment has been received. This serves as an official record of the assessment process. If needed, we can also provide a letter in support of work accommodations or fill out forms to help you access supports. Letter are generally ready within a week after the feedback session, and reports are usually ready 6-8 weeks after the feedback session.

Optional Follow-Up Session

7

If desired, a follow-up session can be scheduled after the feedback sessions to address any concerns, questions or needs that remain after you have had time to process the diagnoses and recommendations that were communicated.

This time may be billed at the clinician's regular hourly rate.

Assessment FAQ

  • The assessments we offer at Accord Psychology are psychodiagnostic assessments. This type of assessment is conducted to clarify appropriate diagnoses, identify factors that may be contributing to psychological distress or difficulties in functioning, and formulate recommendations to guide treatment and support. 

    Our team does not offer occupational, vocational, functional-capacity, cognitive, psychoeducational or neuropsychological assessments. We also do not conduct assessments intended for use in legal, forensic, insurance, immigration, or child-custody proceedings. 

    Because these areas fall outside the scope of the assessment, the clinician may not be able to provide conclusions or opinions regarding:

    • Your ability or readiness to work;

    • Your suitability for a particular occupation or workplace;

    • Your eligibility for benefits or compensation;

    • Your parenting ability or capacity;

    • Your cognitive or neuropsychological functioning; or

    • Questions requiring a formal functional-capacity, occupational, neuropsychological, or forensic evaluation.

    Recommendations will be provided based on the information gathered during the assessment. They may include recommendations for academic or workplace accommodations, lifestyle changes, or other professional services. However, these recommendations do not guarantee that a third party, such as an employer, educational institution, insurer, government agency, or other professional, will approve or implement them.

  • Please note that no assessment process is perfect and that the type of assessment we provide relies heavily on the information you are able to provide us. We are sometimes unable to make definitive conclusions based on the information we can collect using the means available to us. This means that, in some cases, the assessor may not be able to confirm with certainty whether or not a specific diagnostic label applies to you.

  • Unless another payment arrangement has been mutually agreed upon, direct assessment sessions will be invoiced after each session. These payments will be applied toward the total package fee.

    The remaining balance of the package fee will be invoiced at the time of the feedback session. The outstanding balance must be paid in full before the assessment report, diagnostic letter, forms, or any other written documentation is released.

  • Our clinicians’ package rates reflect their different levels of clinical experience.

    Our assessment package rate is calculated based on the expected number of hours of work needed to complete an assessment, multiplied by each clinician’s hourly rate for assessment services. Rates are set based on current market trends in the GTA for clinicians with a given level of experience.

    Though each clinician’s style is their own, the content and scope of the assessment does not differ meaningfully between the assessors on our team.

  • The assessment process itself is the same either way, the difference comes down to the type of documentation you need afterward. A diagnostic letter is a short document confirming the diagnosis or diagnoses, and key findings. It is often enough if you're mainly looking for diagnostic clarity.

    A full report goes into more depth and detail about the entire assessment process and the information collected, which is usually what's needed for things like formal accommodations at work, school, or other official processes.

    So the right choice really depends on what you'll be using the documentation for, and that's a great thing to talk through with your clinician on the intro call if you're not sure yet.