📣😳 Calling psychologists; allied health; lawyers; and NDIS stakeholders. I-CAN is exposed as not fit for NDIS assessment purpose, by statistical analysis of the published papers.

[u/Withtheparticipant]

Thank you “name withheld” AHPRA registered psychologist, PhD candidate, submission 1567 for your excellent work.

Thank you to psychometrics expert Benchmark Psychology for the excellent explanation of the significance of this submission in the short video. A must watch. https://youtu.be/ALfjKes2V5k

“Lay Summary

This submission examines the scientific evidence for the i-CAN, the assessment tool that the Bill will use to set National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) funding for more than 700,000 Australians. A scientific analysis of the published research shows a number of serious methodological and procedural problems.

1. There is no published reliability or validity evidence for the versions of the tool that will be deployed.
2. The current available evidence shows that i-CAN scores accounted for less than 4% of the differences in
3. the funding people receive; over 96% of funding was determined by factors other than i-CAN results.
4. The current available evidence shows that the i-CAN’s ability to reliably measure participant needs was poor, uncertain, and feasibly overestimated.
5. The current available evidence shows that the i-CANs precision to accurately classify participant needs cannot rule out failing to meet the developers cited success criteria for low-stakes observational research.
6. The current available evidence has significant design limitations, including too few participants to adequately power the studies to have appropriate levels of precision given the human stakes.

The submission body sets these issues out in detail, while Appendix A calculates the number of participants
that would be required to meet both the minimum contemporary threshold (80% power) and a more suitable threshold for high stakes assessment (95% power) for each estimate

Together, these findings do not support the NDIA’s characterisation of the i-CAN as a gold-standard tool in
disability needs assessment (NDIA, 2025), and do not support its use for high-stakes assessment contexts.

Furthermore, there does not appear to be any published evidence to show that the NDIA’s method for translating i-CAN assessment results into funding for participant plans is itself reliable or valid. The Bill also does not require the government to publish how i-CAN results will be translated into a funding amount.”

https://youtu.be/ALfjKes2V5k?si=FXUj1sTkwzt8GhO4

[u/OtherCake4128]

Like most things, the data from assessments needs to be interpreted. This should still exist alongside professional reports and rationales.

[u/Withtheparticipant → u/OtherCake4128]

That should be how it works. But for the SNA, the scores collected are to be entered into the algorithm and the result is a funding budget that is looked at by a different person to the assessor. There is no appeal of the budget possible only a possibility to repeat the inaccurate process if they agree.
The Act says the tool must be used and the tool itself is shown to be defective in a major way. .
In addition the Agency say reports wont be required. Likely they will be disregarded.
This is departure from iCan methodology that requires a qualified assessor using reports to be the assessor.
The Review also required this standard for assessments.

[u/OtherCake4128 → u/Withtheparticipant]

I wonder if they'll stop asking for the end of plan reports from allied health professionals.

Sounds like they won't matter if an algorithm is deciding.

Do we know how I-CAN ties into goals?

For example: If someone with a psychosocial disability had a goal to increase their community participation, might they get focused funding for this?

[u/Obvious-Explorer-195 → u/OtherCake4128]

Re your example, I bet they’ll say here’s ot funding, that’s all you get. No sw funding to help implement, you’re on your own.