Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic

Sometimes getting to medical appointments can be hard. If you have Wisconsin Medicaid, you might be eligible for mileage reimbursement and/or arranging rides to non-emergency medical appointments by contacting MTM Transportation: https://www.mtm-inc.net/wisconsin/ This site will walk you through the steps of setting up an account so that transportation to medical appointments can be arranged. Here is a fact sheet on this program: https://familyvoiceswi.org/resource-library/medicaid-and-non-emergency-medical-transportation/

We know that the waiting list for some clinics can be lengthy, including the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic. If you are interested in exploring other programs that might be able to see your child sooner, you can contact your regional Children’s Resource Center through the Wisconsin Wayfinder: https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/wiscway/index.htm You can call them or send a contact form asking for alternative agencies that provide autism evaluations. Please be aware that if you go elsewhere for an evaluation, the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic will not be able to provide a re-evaluation or second opinion on the autism question.

The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic does not provide neuropsychological evaluations. If this is what you are interested in, you will need to work with your child’s primary physician to determine who is in your health network and ask them for a referral.

The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic does not have the capacity to offer re-evaluations or second opinions of autism but there is a team of Developmental Behavioral Pediatric practitioners (MDs and NPs) who see some patients for challenges and questions related to a child’s autism diagnosis (e.g if a child has sleep, eating, toileting issues related to the autism diagnosis). Our team of psychologists and speech therapists do not see patients on an on-going basis—if these services are needed, our team helps the family connect with community providers.

Yes, always give your child their regular medications. We want the patient to be able to be as productive as possible during their appointment and we know some medications help with this. Our clinic staff will ask you questions about medication and you can share how any medications may affect your child.

The Autism and Developmental Disabilities Clinic receives referrals from primary and specialty care providers across Wisconsin, Illinois, and other neighboring states. Unfortunately, there are not enough specialist providers within our clinic to meet the significant need of children and families as quickly as we would like. You can call the A&DD clinic to check on the status of your child’s referral. Because of all of the factors that affect our wait lists (patient’s age, referral question, clinician availability), it is really difficult for our team to provide accurate wait times. Any timelines given are approximates and may prove to be inaccurate.

An autism evaluation should be tailored to the individual being assessed. It will involve one or more visits with our team.  Before the evaluation, you will receive a call from one of our family navigators who will collect some information about your child and answer any questions you have about your clinic visit. Most visits will include a thorough interview during which the clinician will collect information about your child’s development, medical history, and behavior. The clinician will likely do assessments of the child’s problem-solving skills and their independence skills, and play-based activities to evaluate communication and social skills. Additional components will be added based on clinician judgment.

Whether or not you receive a definitive diagnosis by the end of your first appointment depends on several factors, including the age of your child, the structure of the visit, and family preference. For example, some evaluations for older children are spread out over multiple visits to accommodate the increasing complexity of children as they age. Your clinician will do their best to inform you throughout the evaluation process when you can expect to receive results. All families will receive an individualized feedback session as part of their evaluation, with a discussion around diagnosis and recommendations, as well as a written report.

Unfortunately, we do not provide diagnostic services for adults at this time. We recommend that you discuss this with your primary physician and ask them for a referral to a clinician who provides autism evaluations for adults.

A copy of your report will be available within Mychart approximately one week after your evaluation. Your providers will also mail a hard copy of the report to your home. Please check to see if your current address is updated within Mychart.  If you need additional reports in the future, they should continue to be available in Mychart but you can also contact UW Health Health Information Management (HIM) at him@uhs.wisc.edu to request additional copies.

The A&DD clinic does not provide treatment services at this time. However, we have family navigators who can provide information regarding services and supports that may be available to your family following an evaluation. Therapy recommendations should be guided by the needs and capacity of the child and their family. There is no one treatment for every child with autism.

We would strongly recommend that you have a referral sent over by your child’s primary care physician to ensure that visits are covered by insurance provider.