Embrace Autism is a terrible practice and no one should seek a diagnosis there.

A lot has been said online about Embrace Autism, and even in the largest autism sub you can find mods speaking out against the practice. That said, I don’t think there’s any really good compilation of everything wrong with the place, so I’m pulling everything together which I’ve found out to try and maybe help at least one person who wants to pursue a diagnosis with them, so that they can make an informed choice given the full context.

The biggest argument against Embrace Autism is that it has developed a reputation as a diagnosis mill, i.e. that if you’re willing to pay their high prices, then you’ll get the ASD diagnosis no matter what. Of course, this comes with the downside that very people take diagnoses from Embrace Autism very seriously (even in the largest autism sub, where posts on it have gotten warnings from mods about shady credentials). There’s also extensive reports of people being unable to use this “diagnosis” to actually access accommodations.

This is a great post by u/prettygirlgoddess explaining why it’s a diagnosis mill.

Keep in mind that the assessment costs about $1600 for what is, essentially, discount-grade validation.

Which leads to the bigger issue: just why people are mistrustful of Embrace Autism and their messaging. The head doctor, Dr. Natalie Engelbrecht, has a shady track record which includes multiple warnings from the College of Naturopaths of Ontario. Her first record was in 2022, and her most recent one was just a few months ago. She was reprimanded for inaccurately representing her ability to diagnoses and assess autism specifically, including misrepresenting that she was only capable of providing naturopathic assessments and naturopathic diagnoses.

She has additionally been told to make clients sign a contract stating, “Dr. Natalie Engelbrecht, ND is authorized to provide a naturopathic assessment and naturopathic diagnosis of autism spectrum and similar disorders, which may not be accepted by all government organizations, educational institutions, or employers.”

Dr Natalie Engelbrecht was also required to submit to the CEO of the College a 1500 word essay identifying why her advertising had initiated a complaint and what changes she would have to make goig forwards to ensure public safety and prevent future complaints or investigations.

This is a woman in her 50s whose been engaged in clinical practice since 1996, and the College made her write an essay explaining why she messed up. Seriously.

u/prettygirlgoddess also made another great post highlighting misinformation linked on the site. This includes using studies to prove statements which proved the opposite, to the point of some study’s directly contradicting the statements Embrace Autism was trying to make in the title.

And a final gripe, though I’m sure there’s more information I’ve missed and would be happy to add: the Embrace Autism website is absolutely full of content explaining how autism screeners and questionnaires work to laypeople. This could be okay, but it misses the mark in two issues:

1. The explanations are placed above the screeners, meaning that they’re meant to be read before taking the test. However, they include scoring and how to interpret results. This means that before filling out the screener / questionnaire you already know what you’re doing, which is going “dirty” the score.
2. The way they represent the statistics and mathematics behind it is especially misleading. I’ve written an entire post about this myself, and Embrace Autism is especially guilty of pushing the false interpretation of statistics I was describing there.

There's a lot of screeners, even those completely unrelated to autism, which only pop up on Google through the Embrace Autism site. I know by this point to scroll pass the drivel and take the test (then note down the results to speak through with a professional if needed), but I can imagine this could be viewed as extremely harmful to the sanctity of these tests as a whole in practice.

That’s all the information that I can think of right now, but I’m very happy to edit and include anything else if anyone knows more information :)