Our stamp of quality
Find out more about our commitment to quality.
The ADOS Consortium is dedicated to ensuring Participants receive the very best training in order to be successful in live practice. We believe that in order to deliver a gold standard of autism diagnosis and assessment that our services must similarly be of the highest quality.
Therefore, all our Consortium members complete the following four stages to become an ADOS trainer:
1. Qualify as an ADOS user on an accredited four-day course, including live practice
2. Participate as an “Apprentice” on an accredited four-day course including live practice, and shadowing an experienced Trainer
3. Participate as a “Junior Trainer” on an accredited four-day course including live practice, paired with an experienced Trainer as a Mentor
4. Be signed off by a Mentor as a qualified ADOS trainer based on appraisal of course performance and feedback from Participants
Furthermore, to ensure excellence, qualification as a certified ADOS trainer on our course means that trainers:
1. Maintain ADOS practice including regular use for clinical or research purposes
2. Undertake regular attendance at ADOS joint rating sessions, achieving consistently high levels of agreement
3. Ensure contributions to ADOS training and engagement with Consortium management
The trainers were fantastic and it was good to have trainers from different disciplines and perspectives ... [they provided] really good concrete examples and tips
Our experience dates back 15 years since the Consortium was set up. In that period we have run 17 ADOS courses across Scotland (Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen) and online, training 228 people from CAMHS, community paediatric, learning disability and other specialist services. Of these under 10% are researchers and the rest are all NHS practitioners working in services that provide autism diagnosis. Participants come from diverse fields including psychiatry, psychology, occupational therapy, speech and language therapy, and nursing. The Consortium uses feedback from our diverse Participant network as a measure to improve training and produce positive recommendations.
After the November 2021 course we asked people to rate each stage of the course on a 6-point scale. Ten Participants, out of a total of 12 responding, gave us all 5s or 6s (top marks), with average scores >5 on every item.
Probably the most useful clinical course I've attended since qualifying and I can't wait to get out there and start using the ADOS
Although a challenging course, I thoroughly enjoyed it and would recommend it to anyone. Using the ADOS has enhanced my skills and already proven a useful tool in our service.
I felt it was a fantastic course and allowed the participants to be immersed in ADOS.
The course created a relaxed and trusting atmosphere where you felt able to practise, make mistakes and ask questions. I learnt a lot from the trainers as practitioners who administer and score ADOS regularly.
Thank you for all your patience this week. It has been very well paced and a well organised course and I look forward to practising the ADOS assessments.
The course was run extremely well. The live practice was very valuable, thought-provoking and somewhat nerve-wracking but so so useful and beneficial.
Thank you for the superb training - all members of our MDT who attended found it incredibly helpful. Not just for ADOS but for quality of ASD diagnostic assessments in general.