Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services

Debate between John Leech and Jonathan Reynolds

Wednesday 7th July 2010 Westminster Hall

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Yes, it is difficult. To be clear, my point is that the prevalence and frequency of co-occurring mental health problems with autism require CAMHS professionals to have specialist training. Without that support, there can be misdiagnosis, which can lead to the situation that the hon. Gentleman referred to.

Does the Minister agree that, given the high proportion of children with autism who access CAMHS, all CAMHS professionals should receive some autism training?

I have explained how a basic knowledge of autism among all CAMHS staff is essential to ensuring that appropriate interventions are delivered to children with autism, but that alone is not enough. Providing mental health support to a child with autism is a specialist skill. Research has found that when an autism specialist has been involved in the support of a child, the outcomes and service satisfaction both improve dramatically.

The NAS found that parents who reported that their child had received support from a professional specialising in autism were twice as likely as those whose children had not to agree that CAMHS had improved their child’s mental health. They were also four times as likely to say that a good understanding of autism by mental health professionals had positively influenced their child’s mental health. However, only two in five parents say that their child has had such support.

[Mr John Leech (Manchester, Withington) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing the debate. As a parent of an autistic child, does he support the idea that children on the autistic spectrum should be educated in special schools, or are such children better off in mainstream schools?

[Jonathan Reynolds]

Speaking as a parent, we must recognise that this is a spectrum disorder. Therefore, children with autism are in different situations and have different symptoms, and each requires a response particular to them. Generalisations of the kind that the hon. Gentleman asks about cannot be made. Each parent and professional would, in respect of the support that they had, have to make the decision based on what was best for that particular child.

The professionals who spoke to the NAS stressed the importance of specialist autism expertise when dealing with a child with autism and mental health problems. They explained how in many cases a specific skill-set is required to treat these children and that without that specialist knowledge it can be very difficult to effect any real improvement. They felt that specialist expertise was often required to get a real understanding of how the child’s mental health problems related to their autism, and how they would need to adapt the interventions they provided to take account of the child’s autism.

Although basic autism knowledge will help a professional to communicate better with the child and understand better why the child displays certain behaviours or symptoms, greater expertise is often needed to make a positive difference to the child’s mental health. That is because many therapies and interventions rely on thought processes and communication techniques that do not make sense to children with autism, and only skilful adaptation from a specialist can make them relevant and useful. Children with autism often will not gain any benefit from treatment that is applied in the standard way. Indeed, such treatment can make things worse.

Again, we should recognise good practice where it exists. West Berkshire has a social communication team that provides home and community-based assessment and intervention for young people with complex diagnostic issues or needs that cannot be met by local services. That team works with children with autism and a co-occurring mental health disorder. It takes a multidisciplinary approach, incorporating speech and language therapists, two clinical psychologists and a psychiatrist. The team is also part of a wider multidisciplinary group that provides services for children with autism in west Berkshire. The team recognises the need to adapt therapies to account for autism. Psychologists divide their time between diagnosis and follow-up appointments, and provide behavioural and mental health interventions.