You have a diagnosis. Nobody told you what to do next

You waited for the appointment, went through the assessment, and got a report. It explains a great deal. It also, for most families, arrives without a plan attached, and the silence afterwards is disorienting.

Here is a practical order to work in.

1. Read it for the detail, not the label

The heading is the least useful part. The detail underneath is what you will actually work from: the specific areas of difficulty, the recommendations, the profile of relative strengths.

Two children with the same diagnosis can need almost entirely different support. Working from the label alone leads to generic provision that fits neither of them.

2. Write down what you want to change

Before speaking to any service, list what you want to be different in six months. Be concrete. Not "improve communication" but "can tell me when something hurts". Not "better behaviour" but "can leave the park without a meltdown".

That list is the most useful thing you can bring to a first appointment. It keeps the plan anchored to your life rather than to a category.

3. Work out what has to come first

Almost every family is told about several services at once and cannot do them all. Sequence matters.

Communication tends to come first, because a child who can make themselves understood has less reason to reach for behaviour. Safety comes first where it is an issue. Regulation usually needs to come before formal learning, because a dysregulated child cannot access teaching.

Academics often wait, which feels wrong to a lot of parents and is usually right. A term spent on regulation and communication makes the following year of teaching work far better than a term of pushing content that cannot land.

4. Tell the school properly

Give the school the detail and the recommendations. Ask what they will actually do differently, in specific terms, and ask for it in writing. Ask who is responsible and when it will be reviewed.

Most schools want to help. Many do not know what to do with a report, and a specific request is far more likely to produce something than a copy of the document alone.

5. Decide how you will talk about it at home

Children work out that something is going on. Language that describes how their brain works, without framing it as a fault, gives them something to hold that is not just "I am the difficult one".

Older children in particular do better when they are part of the conversation rather than the subject of it.

6. Take the long view on your own capacity

Most families arrive from the assessment already exhausted, then try to start everything at once and burn out by half term. Two things done consistently for a year beat six things done for a month.

What we would do

At a first consultation we go through the report with you, work out which of your six-month goals is the right one to start with, and tell you honestly if something else should come first, including if that means somewhere other than us.

You do not need a diagnosis to come to us, and having one does not commit you to anything. The first conversation is free.