Parent experiences with children’s psychological evaluation reports

This analysis examines parent perspectives on evaluation reports completed by a school psychologist. Thirty-eight parents reviewed paired reports about fictional children presenting with neurodevelopmental problems commonly encountered in pediatric settings and provided written comments. Consistent with decades of research, traditional reports, written at college level, used technical language and test-by-test organization. Accessible reports, written at middle school level, employed plain language and thematic integration with scores moved to appendices. Thematic analysis of 52 comments identified four themes: difficult to understand and disempowering for traditional reports, accessible language and helpful organization and content for accessible reports. Parents described traditional reports as creating barriers to comprehension and participation through inaccessible terminology and fragmented presentation. Accessible reports enabled understanding and engagement through plain language and functional integration. These findings suggest implications for training and practice: replace traditional reports with accessible reports to better serve children and families.