Meet the team
The founders of Spectrum, Jenny and Sarah, met whilst both working for another company that provided private autism assessments. Aside from becoming firm friends, from this experience they quickly realised that although this was how autism assessments could be done, it was not how they should be done, and their vision of a better way began to develop. Jenny and Sarah both left this company to move on to other projects but remained in touch and after many excited and positive conversations eventually Spectrum was born.
​
The vision Jenny and Sarah still share today is to provide gold-standard private autism assessments in a way which is neuro-affirmative, strength-based, and respects and values the child and young person at the centre of the process.
Sarah
Spectrum Clinical Director and HCPC Registered Child and Adolescent Educational Psychologist
Sarah has over 25 years of experience in working with children and young people with additional needs and neuro-divergency. Sarah qualified as a teacher in 2002 and she worked in special education for many years before moving into Educational Psychology. She received a Doctorate in Child and Adolescent Educational Psychology from the Institute of Education, University College London in 2011, and she has subsequently worked for several Local Authorities, supporting children and young people by identifying their barriers to learning and engagement. Opportunities arose for Sarah to follow her interests and to develop her clinical practice and she became ADOS-2 qualified. Sarah eventually moved into neurodevelopmental clinical practice full time and worked for the NHS as part of a neurodevelopmental assessment team, becoming ADI-R qualified. After a short spell working for a private autism assessment company, Sarah decided to take the brave leap into becoming entirely self-employed and she maintains her Educational Psychology private practice alongside her work with Spectrum.
Jenny
Director and Diagnostic Co-ordinator
Jenny has a background, spanning almost 25 years, working with companies specialising in psychological rehabilitation, multi-disciplinary pain management and since 2019 neurodevelopmental assessment and post-diagnostic support. Her work with individual families, NHS commissioning groups, autism support charities and SEN Law experts enables her to fully support families navigating autism assessment.
Over the years, Jenny has been fortunate to work with some of the very best autism assessors, and many of these clinicians have joined Spectrum’s multidisciplinary teams ensuring that we provide the highest quality and reliable assessment.
​
Jenny thoroughly enjoys helping families through Spectrum’s diagnostic pathway and will happily take the time to speak to families, no matter where they are on their journey.
Paul
Proofreader and Autistic Advocate
Paul is the Spectrum proofreader and our Autistic Advocate. He is essentially the Autistic voice at Spectrum, ensuring that we are neuro-inclusive. Being the Autistic Advocate means that Paul informs our process and language at all stages of each assessment. He is key to ensuring that our assessments are fully accessible and neuro-affirmative. He is also responsible for some of our general administrative tasks.
​
Paul was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome (a form of Autism that is no longer diagnosed) as an adult. He believes that his Autism was not identified as a child because he was a strong academic and a good masker in social situations. Paul described his school life as having been very challenging and he looks back now and wishes that his Autistic differences had been observed and that he had received a diagnosis earlier in life. Despite this, receiving his diagnosis later in life has helped Paul to come to terms with his differences, realise some of his strengths, and feel much more comfortable in his own skin.
Paul has a First Class Honours Degree with Distinction and a Postgraduate Diploma also with Distinction in English Literature from The Open University. His special interests include collecting and reading books, following the game of Rugby Union (particularly obsessing about Saracens rugby club), Star Trek (especially from the 90s and Lower Decks!), and role-playing games and strategy games on the PC. He also loves words, grammar, and etymology, which he says helps him in his current role!
Paul wanted to share the following: ‘I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to work at Spectrum. They have taken into consideration my Autistic differences and I am provided with an ideal working situation for me. I find offices overwhelming and have always struggled to tolerate working in busy environments. Furthermore, I find unfamiliar situations and unexpected social interactions to be anxiety provoking. At Spectrum, I can work remotely from home and communicate primarily online. The team are supportive, and I enjoy discussions about Autism, sharing my own Autistic understanding, and proofreading the reports. I hope that by sharing my experiences, I can help children and young people with their own journey’.
Drew
Consultant Clinical Psychologist
Dr McAnespie has a special interest in Autism and other neurodiverse conditions, which began in his undergraduate and clinical training years. This culminated in him producing a doctoral dissertation on the Neuropsychology of Theory of Mind.
Dr McAnespie has worked in a wide range of roles alongside neurodiverse individuals, spending seven years working within a specialist day and residential service supporting both children and adults with Autism
Dr McAnespie is trained in the ADOS-2, Autism Clinical Interview for Adults (ACIA), and ADI-R for which he holds reliability certification. He has been lead assessor in the assessment of Autism in over 300 hundred cases across the age range.