Parents' understanding of the report and child after comprehensive assessment and feedback.

Abstract

Investigated relations among report characteristics, feedback impact, and parent understanding of the child and report after comprehensive assessment and feedback. Fifty-five parents/guardians ($\overline{X}$_age = 39.35[SD = 8.80]) of children ($\overline{X}$_age = 8.69[SD = 3.86]) referred for outpatient assessment completed a follow-up survey. Most parents (>80.0%) reported having read each report section. Diagnosis and Recommendations were considered the most important. Excluding the Appendix, average self-reported report understanding using a 5-point Likert scale was ≥4.15, with negatively skewed distributions. Child understanding measures were correlated with report understanding and feedback components; report characteristics were not. Feedback impact measures were significant in robust linear regressions predicting child understanding. In open-ended questions, diagnoses were recalled accurately by 52.7% of respondents. Approximately 40% accurately described percentile rank. While 43.4% reported an Individualized Education Program (IEP) was associated with school services, 42.4% did not know the difference between an IEP and 504 Plan. Results suggest that the feedback interaction is more important to child understanding vis-à-vis the written report. Furthermore, despite high self-reported report (and child) understanding, parents were less-than-ideal reporters of diagnoses. Many parents did not fully understand specific jargon words utilized in results and recommendations. These results have practical implications regarding report writing practices and parents' ability to advocate for their children.