Title:	Clinical Perspectives on the Assessment and diagnosis of social and neurodevelopmental conditions in children
Project Description:	Autism Spectrum Disorder (hereafter ASD) is a lifelong neurodevelopment condition characterised by atypical social communication and restricted and repetitive behaviour. Although few developmental conditions have generated more interest than ASD, the biomedical causes and neurological correlates remain unclear. As such, assessment and diagnosis typically relies on a combination of questionnaires measures, standardised interviews, structured observation schedules, and ultimately clinical judgment. Yet comparatively few studies have looked clinical reasoning around the ASD diagnostic process (Turowetz & Maynard, 2016). This is within a context where symptoms cut-across conditions and conceptualisation is not always straight-forward. For instance, ASD shares a marked symptomatic overlap with the nosologically distinct conceptualisations, ADHD and attachment-related conditions. Although differential conceptualisation is a routine activity, little scholarly attention has been given to how this happens in practice. In addition, while formal assessment and diagnosis typically takes place in specialists services, it is often GPs who are tasked with making the initial referral (Crane et al., 2016). Yet there is little research on how GPs make these decisions (Unigwe et al., 2016).
Methodology description:	Using a combination of semi-structured interviews, questionnaires, and analysis of electronic health records, the current project will attempt to understand how practitioners (GPs, psychologists, psychiatrists, and allied health professionals) make decisions about referral and conceptualisation of ASD, ADHD and attachment-related conditions in practice. Using techniques taken from the field of network analysis, the current project will also attempt to apply a novel network analytic methods to structured assessment data (e.g. behavioural questionnaires) and unstructured data (i.e. clinical notes) from electronic health records. Thus helping us to develop a greater conceptual and empirical understanding of clinical reasoning around these developmental conditions.
Project organisation
Start date:	1st October 2018
End date:	30th September 2020
Contact person:	Mr Barry Coughlan
Contact Details:	Primary Care Unit Institute of Public Health University Forvie Site, Robinson Way Cambridge Cambs CB2 0SR UK Telephone: (01223) 7N/A Fax: 01223 762515 E-mail: bc471@medschl.cam.ac.uk
Further Information, References and Publications