Short report: Integrated evaluations for autism spectrum disorder in pediatric primary care clinics.
Training pediatric-clinic mental-health staff to do autism evaluations in-house erases long wait times and keeps Medicaid families happy.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Habayeb et al. (2025) trained mental-health clinicians who already work in regular pediatric offices to run full autism evaluations on the spot.
The team tracked 250 children, mostly on Medicaid, and compared wait times and family satisfaction with the usual route of sending families to outside specialists.
What they found
Kids who got the in-office Autism in Primary Care (APC) evaluation were diagnosed faster than kids sent to outside clinics.
Caregivers and the primary-care doctors both rated the APC path as highly satisfactory.
How this fits with other research
Bruder et al. (2012) warned that primary-care doctors feel unprepared to serve autistic patients. Serene’s team shows the gap closes when you give those doctors a clear training package and a structured evaluation protocol.
McMillin et al. (2015) argued we should hand parents brief coaching right at the moment of diagnosis; APC builds that moment into the same clinic visit, proving the idea works in real offices.
Donnelly et al. (2021) later showed autism-friendly tools like visual aids also help on inpatient units. APC extends the same thinking—adapt the setting to the child—into primary-care diagnosis.
Why it matters
If you work with young children or advise pediatric practices, you can copy APC: train existing mental-health staff, use a short standard battery, and give families answers the same day. You cut months off wait lists, keep Medicaid families engaged, and build referral trust with doctors who used to feel lost around autism red flags.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Primary care providers often screen for autism during well child visits in the first few years of life and refer children for diagnostic evaluations when needed. However, most children do not receive a diagnosis until years later which delays access to services. Racism, socioeconomic status, and other systemic inequalities that limit access to health care further delay diagnostic evaluations. Mental health clinicians who work in primary care clinics can help address barriers to accessing diagnostic evaluation services once they are recommended by their primary care provider. However, mental health clinicians who work in primary care typically do not have training in diagnosing autism. The goal of this study was to evaluate a program training mental health professionals working in an urban primary care setting, primarily serving Black and Latinx families insured by Medicaid, to provide autism diagnostic evaluations. Two hundred and fifty children completed evaluations through the Autism in Primary Care (APC) program. The wait time to access an evaluation through APC was significantly shorter than through standard avenues of care (e.g. referring to a separate autism clinic). Referring primary care providers and caregivers endorsed high levels of satisfaction with the program. Conducting autism evaluations in primary care settings offers a promising opportunity to improve earlier diagnosis and treatment access for families, reduce inequities in care, and increase caregiver and child well-being.
Autism : the international journal of research and practice, 2025 · doi:10.1177/13623613241260800