Assessment

One assessment, designed around your child.

A holistic picture of your child’s neurobehavioural functioning, not a menu of separate tests to choose between.

Ages4–18 years
SettingIn person · Deakin
OutcomeA comprehensive written report
Soft daylight across a sand dune
The idea

Many clinics treat assessments as separate products. You book an autism assessment, or an ADHD assessment, and if something else surfaces, you’re sent away to book another, moved from one silo to the next, each one looking at a single slice of your child in isolation.

Known works differently. When your child comes to us, Dr Murray assesses their whole neurobehavioural functioning. Rather than starting from a fixed product, she starts from your child, and builds the assessment around what they actually need.

How it works

Drawing on the evidence base and on what she sees in your child, Dr Murray decides which areas to investigate and which standardised test batteries to use. For one child, that might mean a focused autism assessment along a fairly traditional path. For another, it might mean looking carefully at autism and ADHD together, or weighing several possibilities at once.

The result is a single, coherent assessment, designed for your specific child, following whichever investigation pathways the picture calls for, rather than a queue of disconnected appointments.

Complex presentations

Children are rarely just one thing. Dr Murray is especially experienced with complex, overlapping presentations, and with finding the real driver beneath the behaviour you’re seeing, rather than stopping at the first label that fits.

Areas an assessment may explore

Selected and combined around your child, often more than one at once.

Autism assessment Social interaction, communication, sensory experiences, and patterns of behaviour and interest. → ADHD & behavioural assessment Attention, executive function, activity and impulse, and whether criteria for ADHD or related conditions are met. → Educational assessment Reading, spelling, written expression and mathematics, and whether a specific learning disorder is present. → Cognitive assessment A profile of intellectual strengths and challenges; identifying intellectual disability or giftedness. → Neuropsychological assessment Our most comprehensive profile, across attention, memory, processing speed, executive, visual and verbal functioning. →
What’s involved

Every child is different, so each assessment is shaped around them. In broad strokes, the process draws on:

  • QuestionnairesCompleted by parents and teachers, building a view across home and school.
  • A parent interviewA clinical interview of around one to two hours, to understand your child’s history.
  • Time with your childDirect assessment of around two to three hours, using evidence-based instruments.
  • A school observation, where it helpsSeeing your child in the classroom and gathering input from their teachers.
  • A written reportBackground, findings, and practical strategies for home and school.

See process, fees & the instruments we use →

After the assessment

An assessment is a beginning. For the families we assess, that same understanding can extend into two further kinds of support, where it’s the right fit and subject to availability.

Therapy Therapeutic support to put strategies in place at home and help your family connect. About therapy → School Support Classroom observation and guidance for teachers, carrying the right understanding into school. About school support →

Begin with understanding.

Tell us a little about your child and what you’re noticing. It takes a few minutes, and it’s the first step toward a clearer picture.

Request an assessment →