What does the evaluation involve?
The evaluation covers early development, social communication, play, sensory responses, attention, impulsivity, activity level, sleep, and how the child manages at school. Input from teachers is valuable because attention and social behaviour often look different in a classroom than at home.
The child is observed directly during the visit, and a physical and neurological examination is performed to check for other contributing causes.
What else can look like autism or ADHD?
Undetected hearing loss, certain seizure types, sleep disorders, anxiety, and significant language delay can all produce behaviour that resembles autism or ADHD. These are considered and excluded before a behavioural diagnosis is settled on, which is why the evaluation is not a single-visit checklist.
What support follows a diagnosis?
Support is built around the individual child: speech and language therapy, occupational therapy including sensory work, behavioural strategies for parents, and specific classroom accommodations. Where medication is considered for ADHD, the discussion covers what it does, what it does not do, and how response and side effects will be monitored.
Why school input carries so much weight
Attention and social behaviour are highly situational. A child can manage well in a quiet room with one adult's full attention and struggle considerably in a class of forty, and the reverse also happens. A clinic visit only samples the first of those settings.
A teacher also has something no parent has: forty children of the same age to compare against, every day. Useful teacher information goes beyond a completed rating scale. Ask specifically how your child copes with unstructured time such as break and lunch, whether they have friendships and how these work, whether they finish written work, how transitions between activities go, and whether behaviour changes in noisy environments like assembly.
When autism and ADHD occur together
These were once treated as mutually exclusive diagnoses and are now recognised to overlap frequently. A child can be autistic and also have ADHD, and where both are present, addressing only one usually leaves a substantial part of the difficulty untouched.
The combination can be genuinely hard to disentangle, because the same behaviour can arise from different causes. A child who does not follow instructions may not have processed the language, may not have registered that the instruction was directed at them, or may have understood perfectly and been unable to hold the intention long enough to act. Those three explanations lead to different strategies, which is why the evaluation looks at why a behaviour occurs rather than cataloguing that it does.
Getting a disability certificate in India
Both autism and ADHD-related disability are recognised under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, and a certificate issued by a designated medical board can open access to educational accommodations, examination concessions such as extra time or a scribe, and certain financial benefits.
A clinic diagnosis is not the same as a certificate: the certificate is issued by an authorised board, usually at a designated government hospital, on the basis of its own assessment. What the clinic provides is the documentation that supports the application. Many families are never told this route exists and discover it years later, so it is worth raising during the evaluation, particularly before school examination years when concessions need to be arranged well in advance.
Follow-up: judging whether the plan is working
A diagnosis at the end of an evaluation is the start of the work rather than its conclusion. Review appointments exist to test whether what was recommended is actually helping: whether the therapy referrals happened, whether the school made the accommodations, and whether daily life at home has improved.
Progress is best judged against specific things rather than a general impression. Is homework taking less time? Are mornings less fraught? Has the child managed a birthday party? Where medication is used, reviews cover appetite, sleep, mood and growth alongside benefit. Where nothing has changed after a reasonable period, the plan is revised rather than continued out of momentum.
Frequently asked questions
At what age can autism be assessed?
Concerns can be assessed from the second year of life, and early support does not require waiting for a formal diagnosis. If you or a teacher have concerns about social communication, an assessment is worthwhile at whatever age they arise.
Does an ADHD diagnosis mean my child needs medication?
No. Behavioural strategies, classroom accommodations and parent support are the foundation. Medication is one option considered for some children, discussed openly with the family, and reviewed for both benefit and side effects.
Is a school report really necessary?
It is very helpful. Attention, social interaction and behaviour vary by setting, and a teacher sees the child alongside many peers of the same age, which adds information a clinic visit cannot provide on its own.
How many visits does an evaluation take?
Usually more than one. A first visit covers the developmental history, examination and direct observation; school information is often still awaited, and a hearing test or other checks may need arranging. Reaching a considered conclusion across two or three visits is normal and is a better process than a diagnosis given in a single sitting.
Can a diagnosis be made without a formal test score?
Yes. Autism and ADHD are clinical diagnoses, based on developmental history, observation and information across settings. Structured tools and rating scales support that judgement and are useful, but no questionnaire diagnoses either condition on its own, and a score in isolation should not be treated as an answer.
We are worried a diagnosis will harm our child's future.
This concern is common and worth discussing rather than acting on silently. In practice the diagnosis is usually what unlocks support, including school accommodations and, where relevant, a disability certificate. A child who is struggling without an explanation is generally labelled anyway, as lazy, naughty or slow, and that label is both less accurate and harder to shift.
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Book an appointment
Consultations are by appointment at Huda, Sushant Lok 2, Sector 55, Gurugram. Tell us what is worrying you and the clinic will call you back.