This is our Official Process but the spirit of the process is:

• You get to know us.
• We get to know you.
• We decide together if Autistry Studios is something that will work well for you.

Our target population are individuals (13 and older) who have social, communication or learning differences. We have no maximum age limit. Many of our students have the diagnoses of High Functioning Autism, Asperger’s Syndrome, Non-Verbal Learning Disorder, or PDD-NOS. Some of our students have no particular diagnosis but have experienced difficulty at school, college or in the work place due to problems arising from social or communication challenges and have shown through our intake process to be a fit for our programs.

Completion of the Autistry Studios Intake Process is mandatory for participation in our program. Our intake process serves two mutually supporting purposes:

1. Allows the candidate student an opportunity to get to know some of the staff and experience the workshop areas in a quiet time between classes. This helps the candidate student to “stick their toe in the water” before jumping into a full workshop. In this way a student starts their first workshop already knowing at least one of the staff and already familiar with the layout of the workshop spaces.

2. Allows the assigned therapist an opportunity to meet and assess whether the candidate student will benefit from our program, or whether some form of work other than Autistry Studios may be more appropriate. This also allows the therapist to assess whether the candidate might present behavioral issues beyond what Autistry Studios staff can safely handle.

The Intake Process:

1. Contact Autistry Studios to arrange a phone conversation with one of our therapists. This is free of charge and this discussion allows us to make an initial determination of whether Autistry Studios’ services might be helpful for your situation. If there is agreement to proceed we arrange for a studio intake meeting.

2. Pay scheduling deposit and schedule a Studio Intake Meeting. These meetings typically run 90 minutes and there is a $50 creditable deposit* which must be paid to schedule the meeting. The Studio Intake Meeting is a tour and meeting where we meet with the prospective student and tour the studio. The agenda for this first meeting is to explain what we do and meet the candidate student. These are scheduled at times when the workshop is not in use and the candidate student’s attendance is mandatory.

3. If there is mutual agreement to proceed there must be at least one subsequent meetings with the student’s current caregivers to further discuss the student’s history and objectives for the future. A short term treatment plan will be developed and discussed.

*$50 creditable deposit: must be received to schedule the meeting. Fee will be credited towards student’s first workshop fee if student continues in the program or other Autistry services. If the family cancels the meeting with less than 24 hours notice the fee will not be refunded and an additional $50 fee must be paid to reschedule.

If you are interested in participating in the Autistry Studios program please contact us to set up an initial meeting.

To pay for deposit: To pay the $50 deposit to schedule your appointment please go here.

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Frequently Asked Questions about the intake process

Why can’t we visit a workshop in progress? Our workshops are very small with 3-6 students and 2-4 teachers. Random visits are very disruptive to our students and effectively stop all progress for much of a workshop.

Why don’t you work with children under 13 years of age? There are several reasons. One is that our mission is specifically to fill what we feel is a huge gap in services available to people with ASD after they leave high school. Our services are targeted for that age group but we find that they work well for people as young as 13.  In the future we may add parallel programs for younger students but at this time we are committed to our target age group.

Why is there a fee for the Studio Intake Meeting? The meeting requires two Autistry staff and 90 minutes of their time. In the past there were too many instances of families not showing up for their scheduled appointments so we had to add a fee to compensate for our time.