‘Autism and ADHD: diagnosis and demand in neurodevelopmental care’, The 2026 Emanuel Miller International Online Conference will explore current debates around autism and ADHD, focusing on how scientific evidence, diagnostic practices, and rising demand for assessment intersect within contemporary neurodevelopmental care. Bringing together leading experts, the programme will examine how changes in diagnostic frameworks, service pressures, and social contexts shape who receives a diagnosis, when, and with what implications for young people, families, and services. The conference aims to provide a reflective, evidence-informed space to critically engage with questions of diagnosis, demand, and care across different clinical and service contexts.

Confirmed speakers; Professor Sam Cortese, Professor Jonathan Green, Professor Will Mandy, Professor Petrus de Vries, Professor Stephen Hinshaw, and Professor Emily Simonoff. Chair Dr. Gordana Milavić

Booking

Sign up at this link or on the Book Now button at the top of the screen, and complete the form that follows. You’ll then receive an email confirmation and a link to the webinar, plus we’ll send you a calendar reminder nearer the time. Delegates will have exclusive access to recordings for 90 days after the event, together with slides. Plus you will get a personalised CPD/CME certificate via email.

• ACAMH Members MUST login to book onto the webinar in order to access this webinar and get a CPD/CME certificate
• Non-members this is a great time to join ACAMH, take a look at what we have to offer, and make the saving on these sessions

£149 for ACAMH Members (Print, Online, Concession) Join now and save

£199 ACAMH Learn Account holders

£199 Non Members

£15 ACAMH Undergraduate/Postgraduate Members

FREE LMIC Members

Don’t forget as a charity any surplus made is reinvested back as we work to our vision of ‘Sharing best evidence, improving practice’, and our mission to ‘Improve the mental health and wellbeing of young people aged 0-25’. 

About the talks

Professor Stephen P. Hinshaw
ADHD in Girls and Women: Historical Neglect, Developmental Outcomes, Stigma, and Current Controversies (including Social Media)

Throughout the history of ADHD (and the former terms that used to describe it), girls and women were largely ignored. Recent research directly counters the claim that ADHD rarely occurs in females. During childhood and adolescence, the male:female ratio is around 2.3:1, but by adulthood, the ratio becomes closer to even. In this presentation I cover (a) the longstanding historical neglect of ADHD in girls and women; (b) current information on sex differences and on the developmental course of ADHD in females, from childhood through the age range of the mid-30s; (c) core impairments (including self-inflicted injury, unplanned pregnancy, and exposure to intimate partner violence) by the adult years; (d) predictors and mediators of such outcomes, pointing to areas for presentive intervention; (e) why ADHD in girls and women continues to receive high levels of stigma; and (f) the roles of both increased recognition and social media in fueling the current trend of fast-rising rates of diagnosis in women. Social history and clinical practice often appears in cyclic rather than linear fashion; I discuss what might be done to foster evidence-based assessments—which include female-relevant presentations of core symptoms—that neither underplay nor overcorrect the female presence of ADHD, leading to needed, science-based interventions.

Learning outcomes

• To understand the longstanding neglect of ADHD in girls and women
• To comprehend the developmental trajectories of girls with ADHD as they mature into adolescence and adulthood
• To develop knowledge of female-specific manifestations of ADHD as well as the stigma still strongly linked with ADHD in females

Professor Petrus de Vries
Supporting autistic children and their families in low-resource contexts – reflections from Africa

In this presentation Prof de Vries will offer a perspective on autism diagnosis, intervention and support in low- and middle-income and low-resource African contexts, where underdiagnosis and limited specialist capacity present a very specific set of challenges. He will use an implementation science lens to reflect on current debates around demand, diagnosis and service organisation, illustrated with examples of task-sharing and context-sensitive research in South Africa.

Learning outcomes

• To have an understanding of resource and contextual challenges for autism in sub-Saharan Africa
• To have knowledge about research strategies under investigation in South Africa to provide context-relevant interventions
• To be able to use findings from South African low-resource contexts to reflect on potential creative solutions to strengthen diagnostic, intervention and support systems for autism, ADHD and other neurodevelopmental conditions in the UK and around the globe

Professor Jonathan Green Autism and Healthcare – a New Relationship

In the context of current confusion and pressure on autism services within healthcare I aim to find a way of thinking about autistic diversity and need that is sensitive to the lived experience of the autistic community and families; as well as recent developmental, genomic and intervention science within health care. From this I will propose how we might formulate a new healthcare response and relationship to autism.

I will consider issues of prevalence and changes in diagnostic rates, the diverse needs within the autism community; then what a new relationship between autism and healthcare might look like, focusing particularly on the early years. Acknowledging the role of public health and social initiatives, I will then, within health care, describe a model integrated stepped detection-care family-focused approach (Green et al 2022), that can provide an evidenced foundational support for longer term autistic child development and well-being. This will include a summary of its evidential background. I will finally describe the experience of implementing such an early care pathway in the UK and in South Asia, along with some early data on its impact.

Learning outcomes

• To consider the factors underlying current issues in autism referrals to the healthcare system.
• To understand a diversity of autistic needs relevant to healthcare.
• Through this to re-imagine potential adapted and effective healthcare responses to autistic children and young people.

Dr. Will Mandy What is autism, now?

Since being introduced to clinical practice in the 1940s, the understanding and definition of autism has continued to evolve, driven by scientific discoveries and social change. Autism was initially considered to be a rare condition, but is now commonly diagnosed in high-income, industrialised nations. For example, in the UK the proportion of children with autism as a registered special educational need in England has more-than doubled between 2016 and 2024, from 1.5% to 3.3%. The ongoing rise in autism diagnoses has led some to speculate that there is an ‘autism epidemic’; and others to argue that autism is currently over-diagnosed. In this talk, I will outline some of the significant changes to how autism is understood and diagnosed; and will use these to consider why rates of autism diagnosis have risen so steeply in recent years, arguing that there is neither an ‘autism epidemic’ nor widespread overdiagnosis. In particular, I will consider key changes to social environments in late modern societies, and how these contribute to the ever-increasing numbers of people with autistic traits who experience clinically significant levels of disability, alienation and distress.

Learning outcomes

• To understand the extent and timing of rising rates of autism diagnosis
• To understand changes to the definition of autism over the last 30 years
• To recognise the importance of person-environment fit as determining wellbeing and functioning
• To understand changes to the social demands made upon people living in late modern societies such as the UK, and how this may have influenced rates of autism diagnosis

Infographic

Download pdf

About the speakers

Professor Samuele Cortese, MD, PhD is currently a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Research Professor; Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the University of Southampton; and Honorary Consultant for the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Healthcare National Health Service (NHS) Foundation Trust, United Kingdom. Prof. Cortese’s main research interests focus on neurodevelopmental disorders. He has published more than 450 peer-reviewed papers and has secured more than £23 million in funding as a principal or co-applicant. Since 2022, he has been included in the top 1% of scientists in the field of psychiatry and psychology (Clarivate- Web of Science) and has been ranked #1 worldwide for expertise in Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) and neurodevelopmental disorders (Expertscape).  Prof. Cortese sat on the Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder NHS Taskforce and has been a member of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) committee on Digital Technologies for Assessing Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder.

Jonathan Green is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University of Manchester and the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. His work includes developing models of parent-mediated supports for early autistic development and a stepped integrated identification/support pathway for early autism care, now being implemented in the UK and internationally. Jonathan has undertaken participatory and co-production work with the autistic community including the phenomenology of autistic compared to neurotypical experience, and intervention co-design; arguing for a re-concepualisation of autism to include developmental and autistic experiential perspectives. He is a Senior Investigator in NIHR, Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, and UK Global Senior Leader for Autism in the International Society of Autism Research (INSAR).

Dr. Will Mandy is a clinical psychologist and autism researcher who is Professor of Neurodevelopmental Conditions at UCL. He has worked clinically and as an academic with autistic people for over 20 years, focusing on research that aims to promote autistic wellbeing via contributing to improved services. His research includes work on how autism is defined and assessed, especially for those who have historically been underdiagnosed, for example, girls and women. Another focus is on the mental health of autistic people, with research trying to understand the nature of autistic mental health problems; their underlying causes and maintaining factors; and what interventions are accessible and effective.

Professor Emily Simonoff is a Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Head of the Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at King’s College London. She also serves as the Academic Lead for the CAMHS Clinical Academic Group within King’s Health Partners. As a Senior Investigator with the National Institute of Health and Care Research (NIHR), her work bridges academic research and clinical practice to advance the understanding and treatment of mental health challenges in children and adolescents. Emily is also a Theme Lead for Child Mental and Neurodevelopmental Disorders in the Maudsley Biomedical Research Centre. Simonoff’s interests include Autism, ADHD, Intellectual Disability; Antisocial behaviour; Genetics and Epidemiology. Her other roles include Chair of the European ADHD Guidelines Group, member of the Steering Committee for Eunethydis (the European Hyperkinetic Disorder Network), Chair of the Mental Health Study Group for Autistica and past Senior Clinical Advisor to the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE).