Using an Interpreter and Out-of-Population Norms in a Custody Evaluation
Dr. Anil Patel is a licensed psychologist in Allentown who is asked by a family court to evaluate a 9-year-old boy, Jean, whose primary language at home is Haitian Creole. Dr. Patel speaks no Haitian Creole. He uses Jean's adult cousin as an interpreter because the court will not pay for a professional interpreter. He administers the WISC-V in English while the cousin orally translates instructions and items. Jean obtains a Full Scale IQ of 68. Dr. Patel's report concludes that Jean has mild intellectual disability and recommends that the mother's custody be limited because Jean cannot benefit from her unstructured household. Dr. Patel did not assess adaptive behavior, did not use any nonverbal cognitive measure, and did not document the interpreter's qualifications. The mother's attorney requests all raw test data and the audio recording of the testing session.
1. Evaluate Dr. Patel's competence and test use. What standards of acceptable practice apply?
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Dr. Patel stepped outside his competence. Standardized cognitive tests require standardized administration; oral translation by a family member changes the task, the timing, and the normative comparison. The WISC-V norms do not apply to an orally translated administration, and a Full Scale IQ of 68 cannot by itself support a diagnosis of intellectual disability. Intellectual disability requires deficits in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior, and Dr. Patel did not assess adaptive behavior. He also used no nonverbal measure and did not document the interpreter's qualifications or the limits of the data.
Acceptable practice would include a trained interpreter, a test with appropriate norms or a nonverbal measure, multiple sources of data, acculturation and language history, and cautious interpretation. The custody recommendation compounds the problem because it rests on an unsupported cognitive conclusion and a stereotype about the mother's household. The Board can discipline for incompetence or gross negligence, and good faith is not a defense to using methods that fall below prevailing standards. The court may also be misled.
2. How should Dr. Patel respond to the request for raw test data and the audio recording?
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Raw test data are generally released to another qualified professional who can interpret them, not directly to an attorney or parent who may misuse or misinterpret them. Dr. Patel can release his report and a summary of the data, but he should protect test security and the integrity of the instrument. If the court orders production, he should seek a protective order or provide the data to a qualified expert under appropriate safeguards. The audio recording is part of the evaluation record and may be discoverable, but he should not destroy it.
He should consult the court's order, his attorney, and applicable ethics standards before responding. He should not alter the record or create a new rationale after the fact. If he now recognizes that the administration was invalid, he should consider correcting the report, notifying the court and parties, and recommending reevaluation by a qualified examiner. Concealing the problem would be worse than acknowledging it. The Board will view an honest correction and remediation more favorably than a defensive cover-up.
3. If the Board receives a complaint, what factors will it weigh in deciding whether Dr. Patel's conduct fell below prevailing standards?
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The Board will examine his training and experience with this population, whether he recognized the limits of his competence, and whether he sought consultation or supervision. It will look at the interpreter's qualifications, the testing conditions, the use of norms, the absence of adaptive-behavior assessment, and the link between the data and the custody recommendation. It will ask whether he disclosed the limitations in the report and whether he overstated certainty.
The Board will also consider harm: a parent's custody was potentially affected by an unsupported diagnosis. Good faith clinical judgment may be relevant, but it does not excuse invalid methods. If Dr. Patel acknowledges the problem, corrects the record, and obtains appropriate consultation, that may mitigate discipline. If he defends the evaluation as standard practice, the Board is more likely to find incompetence or gross negligence. The key question is whether a reasonably prudent psychologist in the same circumstances would have used these methods and reached these conclusions.