‘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.

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EARLY BIRD £99 (until 16/03/26, then £149) for ACAMH Members (Print, Online, Concession) Join now and save

EARLY BIRD £139 (until 16/03/26, then £199) ACAMH Learn Account holders

EARLY BIRD £139 (until 16/03/26, then £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

Infographic

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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 Hon Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. He studied medicine at Cambridge, Paediatrics in London and Psychiatry in Oxford before establishing clinical and research groups in Manchester, UK. He has focused clinically and in research on early social and relational development in children generally, and on autistic development in particular. His group has led development and testing of early parent-mediated interventions for autistic development for both pre-school diagnosed children (PACT) and in the pre-diagnostic stage (iBASIS); and built on this evidence to advocate an early developmental pathway approach to autistic care that is now being applied in UK and internationally. In the last few years, he has undertaken increasing participatory work with the autistic community, including discussion on neurodiversity and the ethics of intervention, explorations of autistic phenomenology and full co-design of a new anxiety intervention for young autistic children. Jonathan sat on the most recent UK NICE development group for autism. He is a Senior Investigator in NIHR, Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, and UK Global Senior Leader for autism for the International Society of Autism Research (INSAR).

Professor Will Mandy is a clinical psychologist and professor at University College London (UCL), where he is joint director of the UCL clinical psychology training course, which is the largest of its kind in Europe. His work aims to improve the recognition of autism, and to develop new interventions to help autistic people. He has a particular research interest in improving the identification and care of females on the autism spectrum, who are currently at high risk of going unnoticed and unhelped by clinical and educational services. He also studies sub-diagnostic autistic traits in non-clinical populations, and the role these can play in the development of a range of common childhood, adolescent and adult mental health problems. With colleagues at Great Ormond Street Hospital’s National Centre for High-Functioning Autism he has developed and trialled interventions to help children with autism transition from primary to secondary school, and to teach children about their autism diagnosis, with an emphasis on fostering their sense of self-worth and pride.

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).