Questions You May Have About CARD

CAN I HAVE MY CHILD DIAGNOSED AT CARD? No, CARD staff are not able to perform diagnostic evaluations, due to our legislative directives, but we will help families find qualified professionals if they are seeking a diagnosis.

It is not uncommon for parents to call us for information on where they can go for a diagnostic evaluation if they need one for their child and do not know where to start. CARD-USF does not do psychological or medical evaluations or make a diagnosis, but we can give you a list of practitioners who can. The diagnosis can be made by a physician, such as a pediatrician, psychiatrist or neurologist, or by a licensed psychologist. Often, the professional making the diagnosis will recommend that the parent call CARD.

WHAT DOES CARD DO? CARD is here as your source of information for autism related questions. The level of service depends upon the need. Often, a phone consultation will be all that is needed to solve an autism related problem that your family may be experiencing or to answer a question that you may have. If you live within our catchment area (counties listed on our home page), you can call CARD-USF any time that you have a question that pertains to autism or related disability and one of our professional staff will try to respond to your question during a phone consultation. Most of the time questions can be answered within a day or two. Other times questions may require some research in order to provide answers and that may take longer. If it is determined that you may need more support than can be provided by written material or a phone call, then you will be asked to do an intake with us. (See CARD-USF Supports for additional information on services.)

When you call CARD, we will register you by placing you on our mailing list to receive our conference announcements, workshop flyers, and our newsletter. The mailing list is not shared with any other agency outside of CARD. If for some reason you would prefer not to be on our mailing list, you can advise us of that when you call.

WHAT DO FAMILIES NEED TO DO IN ORDER TO ACCESS CARD? Give us a call or send an email. We will ask for some preliminary information to be able to register you on our mailing list and to begin the intake process. This initial call to us usually takes 5 - 10 minutes over the phone and we will gather contact information and a brief history about the individual with autism. Once we have your contact information, we will send an information packet to you which will include an application for services, and a release that you will need to sign and return to us. You will also need to provide us with a copy of an evaluation or IEP that can be used as proof of eligibility. Once eligibility has been determined a CARD consultant will be assigned to you and he or she will help determine the level of service that your family needs.

HOW LONG WILL CARD STAY INVOLVED? CARD is intended to be a short term service for most families, however, CARD is here as long as we are needed. We will work together to determine the level of services that are needed and the best method for providing them.

HOW OFTEN CAN WE CALL CARD? You can call us as often as you need. We are here to be a source of information about autism and to provide answers to your questions.

WHAT ARE SOME ADDITIONAL SUPPORTS AVAILABLE BY CARD? Our services reflect a wide range of support activities that can be provided to individuals, families and agencies. Some of these support activities are of short duration while others are more intensive, long-term approaches for helping to build the capacity of families and agencies. A description of services can be viewed through our drop-down "Services" menu in the column on the left.