Nishioka Takeo
Google MapsMy 7-year-9-month-old daughter completed a standardised assessment, including the CELF-5, on 9 and 13 July for use with her school, NDIS and other services. Communication beforehand was professional, Keely was pleasant in person, and the pricing was relatively accessible. However, the first report left all major scores, percentiles and severity classifications blank. These were the central results showing her overall language ability and how her understanding and expression compared with same-age children. Keely contacted us herself after noticing the omission and promptly sent a revised report. We then found “[Child’s Name]”, “Jarrod”, and “him” referring to our daughter. They were corrected after we raised them, and we were told there had been a system update issue. Some remained after the first revision, so we were unsure how thoroughly it had been checked. The Linguistic Concepts result was also missing. The report included the Language Memory Index for the 9-and-over age group, while the Language Structure Index for ages 5–8 was absent. We asked why. We received no direct response about the age-related index, but were told construction noise during Linguistic Concepts caused “a high amount of distraction” and “limited reliability”. The original report did not mention construction noise, distraction or limited reliability. Instead, it said the assessment took place in a “quiet environment”. During the assessment, we said we had not understood the explanation. Keely’s response led us to believe she was explaining what would appear in the report, but the noise and reliability issue were not included. We were later told that we had discussed whether to include the result, and later that we had been told it would not be included. Our English comprehension was also mentioned. This felt like the focus had shifted from what was missing in the report to whether we had understood the conversation. The email used “a high amount of distraction” and “limited reliability”, while later wording was more limited: “may have been impacted”, “some minor variation”, and “not louder than a busy classroom”. This made it difficult to tell whether the report and later explanations described the same level of concern. The Practice Manager appeared to interpret our request for an accurate record of the assessment conditions and clinician’s explanation as a request to add the parents’ opinion. Our concerns did not feel directly resolved before the correspondence ended. The report was eventually revised into a usable form after I checked each section and raised the issues individually. Corrections were made, but the missing key scores, another child’s name and pronouns, the age-related index question, and the differences between the original record and later explanations left me concerned about report quality control and how problems were handled. Parents may wish to check the child’s name, age, scores, assessment components and testing conditions before submitting the report elsewhere.