Before treating the assessment as the problem, it is worth understanding what an assessment involves, what purpose it serves and the role the assessing psychologist plays in protecting the welfare of your client’s child.
Reasons a Parent May Independently Initiate a Neurodevelopmental Assessment
• Concerns about a child’s symptoms or struggles prompt a search for answers, but resistance from the other parent is anticipated.
• A parent notices an exacerbation of symptoms or traits that were more subtle in earlier developmental periods and fears the other parent will discredit those observations.
• There are significant safety or harm concerns about the other parent’s involvement in the assessment process.
It is acknowledged that in rare cases an assessment may be motivated by potential gains in a custody or litigation dispute. However, the overarching question psychologists consider is not the parent’s motives, but whether the assessment is reasonable and appropriate based on the referral information and likely to assist in understanding and supporting the child’s needs.
Understanding the Benefits and Risks of Assessment
Parents can often hold different views about whether an assessment will benefit their child. Some parents fear that obtaining a diagnosis will result in their child being labelled or stigmatised, or that a diagnosis of ADHD or autism may be framed in a deficit‑focused way, with impacts to the child’s sense of worth, belonging and self‑identity.
While these concerns deserve respect, it is worth considering that children are often labelled long before they receive a formal diagnosis. A child who struggles with attention, emotional regulation, organisation or social interactions may be described as lazy, difficult, disruptive or unmotivated. These informal labels can be far more damaging than a thoughtfully communicated diagnosis and the adoption of a neuroaffirming framework to understanding the child’s differences.
Potential benefits of a neurodevelopmental assessment include access to tailored educational supports, funding for classroom assistance, learning accommodations and targeted therapeutic interventions that support a child’s skill development and independence. Research indicates that early intervention can reduce the risk of secondary difficulties such as depression and anxiety, low self‑esteem, school disengagement and behavioural challenges which can emerge when children repeatedly struggle without support or self‑understanding (Franz et al., 2022).
There are also legitimate considerations on the other side. Assessments can be expensive, time consuming and emotionally taxing for families already experiencing conflict. While research shows autism can be reliably diagnosed from two years of age (Okoye et al., 2023) and ADHD more reliably diagnosed once a child is past preschool age (Halperin & Marks, 2019), there remains a risk of misdiagnosis and inappropriate treatment, particularly where trauma symptoms may be contributing to a child’s presentation (Bäccman et al., 2026).
This is complex clinical territory, since trauma symptoms and neurodevelopmental conditions each carry a risk of under or over diagnosis where a presentation is mixed. Trauma and neurodevelopmental conditions can also occur simultaneously and interact with one another; a factor psychologists must weigh carefully in reaching diagnostic conclusions.
In essence, an assessment is neither inherently good nor bad. The more important consideration is whether the process is likely to produce useful information capable of supporting the child’s development and wellbeing.
What Psychologists Do When Parents Are in Conflict: Consent and Parental Involvement
It is understandable that a separated parent may be concerned to learn that assessment appointments have been booked without their knowledge. A common misconception is that a child attends a single appointment and leaves with a diagnosis. In practice, comprehensive neurodevelopmental assessments require informed consent and follow a staged process of gathering and evaluating information from multiple sources over time.
Lawyers may also be unaware of the extent to which psychologists are trained and experienced in managing family conflict. Under the AHPRA Code of Conduct psychologists are required to balance risk and harm, obtain informed consent and communicate appropriately with parents when providing services to children.
Although the Code does not specifically address separated families, psychologists routinely work with parenting disputes, trauma histories and high conflict family dynamics, and clinicians give careful consideration to validity of consent, the reliability of information and the potential impact of the assessment process on the child.
Ethical practice in this context generally includes:
• Informing families that consent from both parents is typically required.
• Clarifying parental responsibility arrangements and reviewing any parenting orders.
• Making reasonable efforts to involve both parents in the assessment process.
• Proceeding on one parent’s consent only where legal decision‑making authority has been clearly established.
Even where consent has been obtained, a psychologist may delay or pause an assessment if parental conflict, stress or trauma‑related responses are affecting the child’s presentation or compromising the reliability of the information being gathered. The clinician’s role is not to determine which parent is right. It is to ensure the assessment is conducted ethically, remains in the child’s best interests and produces clinically meaningful information.
Engagement of Multiple Measures
Research demonstrates that no single informant or single setting is sufficient for an appropriate diagnosis (Peterson et al., 2024). A quality assessment draws on collateral from multiple informants and the child themselves through clinical interviews, psychometric tools and structured observation.
Parents, teachers, GPs and allied professionals such as occupational therapists or speech pathologists each contribute information about the child’s functioning across settings, and clinicians also review documented historical information and educational reports to determine the stability and chronicity of symptoms or traits over time.
Psychologists are also alert to the ways trauma, chronic stress and ongoing parental conflict can affect a child’s behaviour, attention, emotional regulation and social functioning. In some cases, these experiences can present in ways that resemble traits of ADHD and autism including attentional and social differences.
Clinicians therefore look for patterns that are relatively stable and longstanding rather than isolated behaviours occurring during a stressful period. Psychologists are also trained to identify inconsistencies between sources and to consider alternative explanations where information does not align.
For these reasons it is generally difficult for one parent to unduly influence the outcome of an assessment process.
How Lawyers Can Best Support Their Clients
When a client is upset that the other parent has arranged an assessment, there is often a temptation to focus immediately on the procedural issue of exclusion. Parental involvement matters, but lawyers may also find it useful to explore some broader questions.
• What concerns led to the referral, and are there warranted historical concerns behind it?
• Has an assessment actually occurred, or has only an initial consultation been booked?
• What information has been requested from schools and other professionals?
• Is the objection primarily about process, or does it reflect opposition to the possibility of a diagnosis itself?
Understanding how autism and ADHD assessments are conducted puts lawyers in a stronger position to distinguish between genuine concerns about parental involvement and concerns that may, perhaps unintentionally, prevent a child from accessing support.
Ultimately assessments should not be viewed as tools for one parent to gain an advantage over another. Their purpose is to gather information that helps a child understand themselves and access support where needed. When centering the child, the most useful question is not “which parent is right” but “what does this child need so that both parents can support them effectively”.
Danyelle Mastroianni, Registered Psychologist
The Hummingbird Centre
Sources
Bäccman, C., Agorander, S., Lanér, I., & Almqvist, K. (2026). Exposure to potentially traumatic events and associated mental health problems in children referred for assessment for ADHD and/or autism. Nordic Psychology, 1–16.
Cortese, S., Daley, D., Hollis, C., Rae, S., Ani, C., Asherson, P., … Ford, T. (2026). ADHD (over) diagnosis: fiction, fashion and failure. The British Journal of Psychiatry, 1–4.
Franz, L., Goodwin, C. D., Rieder, A., Matheis, M., & Damiano, D. L. (2022). Early intervention for very young children with or at high likelihood for autism spectrum disorder: An overview of reviews. Developmental Medicine & Child Neurology, 64(9), 1063–1076.
Halperin, J. M., & Marks, D. J. (2019). Practitioner Review: Assessment and treatment of preschool children with attention‑deficit/hyperactivity disorder. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 60, 930–943.
Okoye, C., Obialo‑Ibeawuchi, C. M., Obajeun, O. A., Sarwar, S., Tawfik, C., Waleed, M. S., Wasim, A. U., Mohamoud, I., Afolayan, A. Y., & Mbaezue, R. N. (2023). Early Diagnosis of Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Review and Analysis of the Risks and Benefits. Cureus, 15(8), e43226.
Peterson, B. S., Trampush, J., Brown, M., Maglione, M., Bolshakova, M., Rozelle, M., Miles, J., Pakdaman, S., Yagyu, S., Motala, A., & Hempel, S. (2024). Tools for the diagnosis of ADHD in children and adolescents: A systematic review. Pediatrics, 153(4), e2024065854.
Psychology Board of Australia. (2025). Code of conduct for psychologists. Australian Health Practitioner Regulation Agency.
Pacifica Congress is pleased to highlight the work of Danyelle Mastroianni, Registered Psychologist and Accredited EMDR Practitioner at The Hummingbird Centre (Newcastle and Maitland, NSW). Danyelle's work focuses on trauma‑informed practice, including PTSD, complex trauma, shame and stigma, and the application of evidence‑based therapies such as EMDR, TF‑ACT, EFT and attachment‑based approaches. Her research and clinical interests contribute to the growing understanding of trauma recovery and the importance of fostering self‑compassion, resilience and psychological wellbeing in therapeutic practice. For more information, visit
www.hummingbirdcentre.com.au
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