CapitalCare Developmental Pediatrics

I love this practice and am so indebted to it. My daughter was out of control (behaviour wise) and I couldn't find help for her. We got an appointment with Dr Seema, who diagnosed her straight away with Autism. Dr Seema makes sure that you have information for all the supports available to you, and made sure I understood my next steps before leaving her office. The front of house/admin staff is superb as well, and are very responsive via text. They understand that us parents with special needs children have hectic home lives, and they try to make the "admin" side of such a life as easy as possible.

Personally I would find somewhere else to get an “evaluation” from. They’re extremely short and dismissive of what the parents tell them. They see your child for a short time and say they’re great and they may have adhd. They don’t see how your child truly acts and don’t take the time to figure it out either. You begin to explain how they are in their home environment and how it’s obviously completely different than how they’re acting in the office and this doctor literally wrote down on her paper “Mom is miserable.” I'm not miserable. I’m exhausted from doctors not listening to me about my child and my concerns for him and telling me “He speaks so well so he can’t be autistic.” I’m here to tell you that Autism isn’t cut throat like that. I would not recommend coming here if you want to be listened to. If you don’t believe me that the doctor truly wrote that, I took a picture to back up my claims. I’m not playing anymore especially when it comes to my child.

Blew off my son’s urgent referral by his pediatrician for two months, never returned any phone calls, then told me to buzz off when I visited their office to inquire what was going on.

Called a few times and left a few messages. They never called back.

Very disappointed with this practice. My daughter had an “evaluation” here in the past year and I refrained from making my thoughts about the process public until I had time to consider my thoughts and feelings about it. First of all it is not a thorough process, they’re disorganized, and dismissive of parental experiences with their own children. Secondly the evaluation process is not exhaustive, they don’t in their words “test for ADHD combination type or inattentive type” what?!?!? My daughter has been suffering through symptoms of neurological divergence for years but other than taking about 20 minutes to conduct the ADOS test the Autism evaluator spent all of 25 minutes (including test time of 20 minutes) with my daughter. They didn’t consider the extensive notes on her behavior at home, just how she presented on that day and that small timeframe in particular. They assessed and threw us out the door with hardly any direction other than she has anxiety and to say they would be fine with us getting a second opinion, gee thanks for the permission. If you have a daughter who is great at masking they’re not going to “tease” out the symptoms to figure out what is going on, they go very much by face value of symptoms, I would go elsewhere. My older daughter is being evaluated at another clinic and the process is different and definitely more exhaustive. Honestly it’s like night and day how different the process is at another clinic. I do not recommend this place unless you have a typically presenting autistic male child.

Here’s my review as an experienced autistic person and autism parent. Our first experience with Dr. Torre was a nightmare, but I’ll leave that aside. Today we saw Dr. Torre for less than 5 minutes, can’t wait to see what we’re billed for. We booked an 11:00am appointment. All of the nine confirmation texts they sent said 11. When I showed up they said my appointment was for 10:30, despite all my appointments showing 11. They acted like they were doing me a favor and rushed us through this incredibly important appointment. There was very important paperwork they could have easily sent me before hand that ate up a lot of appointment time, I was also pressured to fill this out as quickly as possible. Another sour experience trying to gain care; our system is broken.

Per my son’s pediatrician, I’ve called to schedule an appointment. I’ve tried calling and the phone just rings. There are no recordings stating their hours, if the staff is out to lunch or office is closed. No emails, nor hours listed on the site. I’ll update if I ever speak to anyone… Update: I was able to speak to someone and schedule an appointment, this took over two weeks of frequent calling. They now have a system that picks up with times, etc. Once I had someone on the phone, the earlier my son could be see was 9 months later… We finally went in for the appointment. The doctor was professional and seemed thorough (but I have nothing to compare this to) He spent 45 minutes with us. What I did not appreciate and would urge parents to do differently is that we (doctor and I) spoke about my son in front of my him. This negatively impacted my little one. Adult matters that are discussed, like diagnoses, should NOT be done in front of children. Once these diagnoses were presented, there were no real suggestions, or next steps offered. I had to inquire and then did get some answers. What surprised me most is that the developmental pediatrician told me he would not work with my son (because he did not diagnose him with autism). This was a surprise as on this doctor’s page it states that he works with many other diagnoses… As I left, I was told that the report would be mailed the next day. I asked for this to be emailed to me, and was told that was not an option. Two weeks later, I called inquiring about the report and explained I urgently needed it for school meetings. The report was emailed. I recently had to have more documents sent, this time the report was sent again but this time encrypted (why not the first time?) If you need comforting and warmth after hearing your child’s diagnoses, this is not the office for you! The office and this one doctor in particular had been highly recommended. We drove over an hour to be seen. Overall, this was not a good experience and I will search locally, or elsewhere to best support my son.

We just had our son evaluated here today. I was definitely anxious coming in for this appointment, but we met with Shauna and she was WONDERFUL. I cannot say enough good things about her. She observed our son for a long time and her assessments were right in line with everything we see with him. We were impressed with how accurate her assessment was. She answered all of our questions, explained things in a kind and respectful way, and did a great job explaining her reasoning for her conclusions regarding him. We never felt rushed or talked down to, which we have experienced with other practices. I cannot say enough good things about her or our experience today.