TLDR: If you are keen to spend some extra money without having an insightful discussion on your kid’s improvement - do go ahead with Ananya else approach other CDCs. Your child would be in unsafe hands with limited capabilities and incorrect assessment. So better to opt for other CDCs.
We approached Ananya based on guidance from a doctor for my 2.5-year-old child on a Saturday. One big mistake, we didn’t review the existing reviews on the internet. We approached the Center and got in touch with both Madhavi(owner) and Laxmi(speech therapist).
There were significant reasons of concern due to which I would not recommend this CDC to any right-minded parent.
-Focus on money before any effort gets started. They refused to even share anything on the process until is paid the charges(6K).
-No empathy towards parent or child - parents are already in a vulnerable state when they approach any CDC, Ananya staff were quite the opposite as compare to empathetic.
-Violent resistance to any feedback either on their process or understanding of the process and kept raising voice whenever checked.
-Limited staff capability: some of the assessments were in contrast to the guidance from the psychiatrist due to staff being unable to evaluate the responses.
-No insights given in the report: Madhavi explicitly mentioned, they don’t explain the report to the parents ever. And raised her voice, when we started asking questions. The quality of assessment report(DP 3, Preschool Language Scales-5th edition(PLS-5), and Vineland Social Maturity Scale) was equivalent to doing it yourself online.
-Unprofessional behaviour: They don’t appreciate any parent who questions the accuracy of the report or their approach. The preference is to give them money and your kid without any questions. Once did not share their pricing sheet as well once they realised we question the process and mentioned they don’t have any slots open(weird this happens within 3 days of discussion- that too post lockdown).
-Fake positive reviews - multiple highly positive reviews in mouth shut and google.com are fake. Do review some of them, you will realise that some of these accounts have common reviews across different stores. Some review has reviews of sites in Santa Clara(US) and hyd in the same week.
There were certain initial red flags that I should have caught earlier:
-When asked about the methodology of the test and what would be the process - they(Laxmi) refused to state anything before I transferred the money(6K). This was the first red flag. The testing was also done with an understanding that speech therapy(post-assessment) would also be conducted within the same premises. The assessment was promised next week Saturday.
The overall analysis was conducted across 2 sessions.
Face-to-face at Ananya(kondapur) with Laxmi -
-I have shared a 20-30 page questionnaire which I needed to fill(took almost 40 mins to answer). There was no guidance from her. Additionally, some of the questions didn’t make sense for a 2.5-year-old child eg: Can they write cursive, Can they plan games, can they tie shoelaces, etc. When asked - she mentioned ignoring these questions. Red flag #2
-The same set of questions were asked multiple times. When probed on the reason for the same set of questions, there wasn’t any response.
-Laxmi at some point in time handed over the assessment to her assistant and seemed busy on her phone. The assistant repeated the same set of questions. Red flag #3
-We left once confirmed by Laxmi no additional questions were needed for a Face to face interaction and it can be managed offline.
Zoom call -
The assistant asked some additional questions including a similar set of questions.
Report Delivery(Wednesday)
-The report was originally planned for Saturday, followed by Monday, and finally shared on Tuesday - post-follow-ups from my side. Red flag #4
-The report review session was shared by Madhavi and Laxmi. For some reason, Madhavi didn’t let Laxmi speak despite the assessment being driven by Laxmi.
-The methodology uses DP 3, Preschool Language Scales-5th edition(PLS-5), and Vineland Social Maturity Scale to define the child’s status.
-On DP-3 some of the results were in direct contrast to either what we had provided as data or our own self-assessment eg: He has fine motor skills issues - this is highly untrue since we had showcased significant motor skills. We found similar discrepancies in other sections. Post review, we mentioned is it possible to do a quick re-assessment given the updated data at hand.
-At this point, Madhavi started raising her voice. She clearly articulated that they don’t explain the report to any parent. Red flag #5
-At some point in time, we gave up since the assessment was not going anywhere and we asked her to share the future plan/pricing to understand the overall process.
-She committed to sharing the plan/pricing by end of the day.
-There was no response from Ananya for the rest of the week. On Monday, when checked - I was informed that there are no more open slots and would be informed later. While we had already anticipated this given Madhavi’s behaviour, it was surprising that they can be so unprofessional. Red flag #6
I sincerely thank my stars that questioned the process and also went through the reviews in detail since it saved my child from significant loss of confidence. The existing report is equivalent to doing this yourself online vs going through a proper SLP. Thanks to Ananya and the team for this massive learning experience.