What to Expect from a Psychological Evaluation Report

Rebecca S. Blakeman, PhD

I recently have had several friends around the country who have had their children evaluated for conditions such as learning disabilities, ADHD, and autism spectrum disorders.  When asked to review the reports from their evaluations, I found several of the same problems I often see when reviewing psychological reports, problems which make it difficult for another professional to interpret the results of the evaluation.  This month I would like to review some of the most common problems I see with reports, so that parents seeking evaluations can discuss these concerns with their provider to make sure they get the most helpful report from the evaluation; after all, if the report is not comprehensive and clean, the evaluation has limited value.

One frequent issue that arises is providers do not always list the measures they use when coming to their conclusions; this is especially true if they choose to write a summary letter rather than a ‘report’ of the findings.  It is extremely important that all test measures, including questionnaires, be identified in the report.  Not all test measures/questionnaires are created equally and it is essential for other providers to know what test/questionnaire was used to reach a specific conclusion.  Likewise, it is important for the actual scores to be included in the report.  While most providers will include test scores from intellectual and academic tests, they often omit scores from questionnaires; again, it is not possible for other providers to know how much confidence to put into a conclusion without those questionnaire scores provided. 

Another frequent problem I see is evaluations for learning disabilities that are not comprehensive enough to identify most learning disabilities.  The most common tests omitted from evaluations are tests of spelling and writing skills; however, these tests are critical, particularly if a student is struggling with reading and there is a concern of possible dyslexia.  In addition, it is important that learning disability evaluations assess real word reading, fake word reading, reading comprehension, reading fluency, math calculations and math reasoning; simply testing real word reading and math calculation skills often causes an evaluator to ‘miss’ a learning disability.

Finally, it is important that evaluation reports be comprehensive.  While working in hospital settings I often had to write very brief reports, as that was all that physicians had time to read.  However, when performing evaluations in the private sector I realized that it is critical that parents have as much information as possible in the reports, and that the reports provide enough information for another provider to understand how I came to my conclusions.  I often read brief reports that leave me with more questions than answers, as I want to know why performance on a particular test was poor.  For example, was the child impulsive, did the child not understand the directions, did the child ‘lose track’ of the directions mid-task, did the child miss easy items but respond to correctly to more difficult items, etc.; knowing the answers to these questions often changes the interpretation of test scores, and certainly provides insight into why a child might struggle in his/her daily activities.