A Guide To Getting A Diagnosis

Keep a record

Ask your child's school or nursery staff to provide a record of educational and behavioural interventions that have been used, which should include comments about the effectiveness. Here are the key things you need to know:

• Who delivered the intervention?
• Over what period?
• How it has been monitored for progress?
• Has my child achieved the targets set?

Book an appointment

Discuss your concerns with a professional, such as:

• GP
• Health visitor
• SENCO
• Support workers
• Play therapists
• Private health care professional

Prepare for the meeting

Speak to professionals who have already worked with or seen your child. This could be staff at nursery or school, family support workers or health visitors. Ask them to record their observations or write reports that you can take to the meeting.

Keep a behaviour diary

Think about their speech and communication, and physical development as well as traits and behaviour.

Talk to friends

Ask your friends and wider family members if they have noticed anything different about your child in terms of their development or behaviour.

Bring support

As a parent, the initial meeting can understandably be very overwhelming and a lot of information to take in. Ask a close family member or relative to go with you to take notes.

Outcome of the meeting

There may be a referral made for an assessment of SEN. Please consider that the waiting times for assessments can be very long.

The assessment process

Your child may need to meet with one or more of the following professionals to complete the assessment:

• Behaviour support team
• SENCO
• GP, paediatrician or health visitor
• Clinical team
• Educational psychologist
• Occupational therapist
• Speech and language therapist
• Dietician

The assessor will ask questions about your child and ask what’s made you think they may have a SEN.

The professionals may watch your child during the assessment. They’ll be looking at their behaviour, social communication and interaction with others.

They will look at reports from your GP, health visitor and school or nursery.

They may visit your child at their school or nursery.

Some assessments require a report from an Educational Psychologist . Your school or nursery may be able to request this.

After the assessment

You will receive a report. The report may contain a diagnosis of a specific SEN. It may say something along the lines of 'your child meets the criteria for ……' If this is the case, the report will give you an idea of the areas where your child needs extra help.

Alternatively, the report may say there is not a specific SEN, or there is not enough evidence at this stage to make a diagnosis. In this instance, another assessment may be needed when your child is older.

You can ask the team who carried out the assessment to explain their reasons to you.

If you’re unhappy with the outcome, you may want to go back to your GP to re-refer you or you could investigate private assessments.