Delivering Psycho-educational Evaluation Results to Parents

A Practitioner’s Model

Francis J. DeMatteo

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN: 9780429665042
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education Theory & Practice

Delivering Psycho-educational Evaluation Results to Parents presents a concrete and adaptable Feedback Model that efficiently communicates complex evaluation results to parents in an easily understandable manner.

The book discusses a model rooted in basic learning principles, effective communication practices, and practitioner empathy towards the parent experience of the home-school relationship, hinging upon practitioners and parents jointly creating a permanent product of the evaluation results during the feedback process. It provides early career school psychologists with a parent-friendly Feedback Model that can be adapted to their school-based setting. The text includes specific verbiage to explaining constructs in the cognitive, achievement, visual-motor, and social-emotional domains, along with considerations in application to working with diverse populations.

The text is intended for school psychologists and professionals who complete psycho-educational evaluations for special education eligibility. More specifically, the text is envisioned to support the graduate training of school psychologists and the professional development of early career professionals in the field.

1Introduction

Literature has consistently demonstrated that a positive home-school relationship is a critical component to students’ overall success. When families and schools work together, students demonstrate more positive attitudes toward learning, higher achievement, and decreased behavioral problems while families obtain an understanding of educational practices and their function in supporting their children’s learning (Christenson & Reschly, 2009; NASP, 2012). Educators must continuously nurture the home-school relationship so that it has the ability to endure times of high stress and potential conflict. As such, educators need to remain current in best practices, develop an operational sense of empathy toward student and family needs, and strive to communicate with families in a transparent and respectable manner.

The home-school relationship is most vulnerable at the time of feedback of multi-disciplinary evaluation results for potential eligibility for special education services. According to Federal Regulations, pre-kindergarten through grade 12 students who demonstrate academic and/or behavioral needs in the general education curriculum are entitled to a multi-disciplinary evaluation by qualified personnel (Federal Register, 2006). Following this evaluation, federal special education regulations and codes of professional ethics dictate that the multi-disciplinary team is then required to share the results and recommendations with the parents in a language that is easily understood (APA, 2017; Federal Register, 2006; NASP, 2010). However, asymmetry in parent-professional communication typically exists, as professionals talk differently to each other than to parents (Sands, 1988, 1994). Professionals speak in the “voice of science;” whereas, parents compose their thoughts from the “voice of the life world” (Sands, 1994).

The primary purpose of this text is to provide early career school psychologists and other practitioners who conduct psycho-educational evaluations with a concrete, parent-friendly Feedback Model that can be readily adapted to their school-based setting. This model is designed to facilitate parents’ understanding of evaluation results; thereby increasing their functional knowledge of their child’s strengths and needs and reducing the risk of future parent-school conflict. While doing so, the text aims to describe critical elements to the process of providing feedback of psycho-educational evaluation results to parents, as related to relevant literature and practices in the areas of assessment, home-school relationships, and parents of children with disabilities.

The text is organized in a hierarchical manner and it is recommended that the reader proceeds through the chapters in their designated order to obtain the necessary context of the Feedback Model and develop an awareness of the prerequisite skills to implement the model. References to parents in the text includes the child’s primary caregiver and guardian; and it is assumed that school psychologists are charged with the responsibility to deliver feedback of psycho-educational evaluation results to parents, given school psychologists’ extensive training in broad assessment principles and the administration, scoring, and interpretation of published norm-referenced standardized tests (PNRSTs). In the upcoming chapters, the underlying rationale of the Feedback Model and reasons that support its daily use are discussed (Chapter 2). Afterwards, the Information Processing Model of human learning is reviewed while relating its principles to the Feedback Model’s infrastructure (Chapter 3). With this knowledge, parents’ stressors and perceptions of the feedback meeting are discussed (Chapter 4) and prerequisite practitioner skills to utilizing the model are reviewed (Chapter 5). The Feedback Model is then presented in a detailed stepwise manner with specific verbiage for each step being provided (Chapter 6). Utilizing the model with diverse populations is subsequently reviewed (Chapter 7) and the text concludes with a discussion of applying the Feedback Model to two complex, real-life cases (Chapter 8).

Basic Premises to the Feedback Model

Basic premises to the Feedback Model are discussed in the following sections. These premises help to establish the perspective from which the model is intended to be utilized. The model can be readily implemented when providing feedback of psycho-educational results in a private clinical setting; however, this text will emphasize its use during school-based multi-disciplinary team meetings that occur following the multi-disciplinary evaluation of students for potential eligibility for special education services.

According to federal regulations, a student may qualify for special education services under one or more of thirteen disability categories following an evaluation by a multi-disciplinary team (Federal Register, 2006). The multi-disciplinary team consists of the student’s parents, a regular education teacher, a special education teacher, a Local Educational Agency (LEA) representative, and a qualified evaluator specific to the disability area. When the primary reason for referral involves issues related to cognition, academic performance, and/or social-emotional and behavioral functioning, participation of a school psychologist and a subsequent psycho-educational evaluation are necessary.

Multi-disciplinary evaluations for potential special education eligibility typically involve a school psychologist and include a psycho-educational evaluation when the reason for referral is related to eligibility determination in the following federally defined disability categories: 1) Autism Spectrum Disorder, 2) Emotional Disturbance, 3) Intellectual Disability, 4) Multiple Disabilities, 5) Other-health Impairment, 6) Specific Learning Disability, and 7) Traumatic Brain Injury (Federal Register, 2006). With each of these disability categories, psycho-educational evaluations are necessary to determine eligibility because the essence of the disability is dependent on levels of cognitive, academic, social-emotional, and behavioral functioning.

Delivering psycho-educational evaluation results to parents during a multi-disciplinary team meeting is a delicate and complex process that involves multiple moving variables (DeMatteo, 2005). These variables are loosely categorized into five areas and consist of the parents’ 1) history of interaction with the school, the 2) tone of past home-school communication, the 3) parents’ perception of self and the 4) individual delivering the results, and 5) characteristics of the multi-disciplinary meeting, such as its length in time, physical environment, and number of individuals present. As a whole, these variables form the backdrop to which the Feedback Model is utilized and have the potential to influence parents’ receptiveness to the content of the feedback results. The Feedback Model is intended to work within the conditions established by these variables and minimize their potential adverse effects on the parents’ understanding and ultimate acceptance of the psycho-educational evaluation results.

A Guiding Premise to Delivering Feedback

Delivering feedback of psycho-educational evaluation results to parents is akin to a teacher instructing a classroom lesson with instructional goals and learning outcomes. Thus, to help frame the feedback process, consider the role of a classroom teacher. In a classroom setting, the teacher’s role is to facilitate the student’s acquisition of knowledge and skills in a particular topic area. To do so, the teacher must first consider the student’s facility with related background information. If the student has prerequisite knowledge related to the topic, then he or she will have a “shared language” with the instructional process and a foundation to support the acquisition of new content. If the student does not have prerequisite knowledge of the topic, then the teacher must use explicit instructional methods and expose the student to the content information through utilizing lower-level learning objectives for cognitive tasks.

Learning objectives for cognitive tasks typically fall into one of following six hierarchical categories: Knowledge, Comprehension, Application, Analysis, Synthesis, and Evaluation (Bloom et al., 1956). At the Knowledge level, as a result of instruction, the student knows terms, facts, and procedures through defining, describing, and identifying information. At the Comprehension level, the student understands facts and principles by providing explanations, examples, and summaries. Skills are demonstrated at the Application level through the student’s ability to use learned information in new and concrete situations and competency at the Analysis level requires the student to successfully break-down material into its component parts to understand their organizational structure. At the highest levels, the student is able to put together pieces of information to form a new whole (Synthesis) and judge the value of material for a given purpose (Evaluation). Because these categories are hierarchical, the student must demonstrate competency with the content at the Knowledge level before he or she can be successful with learning at the higher levels and this principle holds true when progressing through the remaining categories.

As applied to the feedback process, school psychologists delivering the psycho-educational evaluation results must first determine the parent’s “shared language,” or level of prerequisite knowledge, related to the content to be discussed. By default, the school psychologist should assume that the parent has a minimal level of prerequisite knowledge related to the psycho-educational evaluation process for two reasons. First, terminology inherent to the products of a psycho-educational evaluation process is highly complex. Common terms such as cognitive skills, processing skills, cognitive efficiency, fluid reasoning, crystallized intelligence, executive functioning, and behavioral analysis are highly complex and it takes years of specialized formal training for one to develop the facility to operationally define these terms and apply them to a given set of circumstances. Second, parents might unintentionally overestimate their “shared language” with the psycho-educational evaluation process given their exposure to information obtained from what seems to be professional sources; information that is often not understood in the correct context. As society matures, communication mediums improve, and technological advances occur, individuals have access to information and knowledge in virtually any topic area. This access to information can be extremely beneficial and empowering, as it provides one with the ability to better identify resources and opportunities to improve one’s circumstances. However, without the proper interpretation and prerequisite awareness, easy access to information and knowledge may provide some with self-perceptions that they are proficient in a particular area. Unbeknownst to these individuals, this proficiency is superficial in nature and, to a large degree, it can not substitute for professional training and experience in a particular field.

When school psychologists recognize the parent’s lack of true prerequisite knowledge or “shared language” in the content area, then the hypothetical learning objectives for the feedback session should be written at the Knowledge level of learning. Instruction (i.e. feedback) at this level utilizes concrete prompts and vocabulary that is readily accessible to the learner (parent) and the goal of the feedback process is for the parent to leave the feedback session with the ability, in basic language, to correctly describe, identify, and label core terminology related to the psycho-educational evaluation process. Only after this ability is acquired will the parent be able to conceptualize his or her child in relation to this terminology and subsequent educational diagnosis if appropriate.

There will be circumstances in which feedback of psycho-educational evaluation results will need to be presented to parents who have a prerequisite knowledge of related concepts and terminology. These parents typically are in careers related to psychology, education, and mental health. In such cases, the school psychologist should continue with the objective of presenting the content of feedback at the Knowledge level. Doing so will preserve the parents’ “cognitive capacity” and reinforce their understanding of concepts. It will also provide them with the opportunity to more actively engage in the feedback process through asking deeper-level questions specific to their child. Note that “cognitive capacity” refers to the inherent limitations of short-term working memory as described within the context of the Information Processing Model, or Dual-Store of human learning (Atkinson & Shiffrin, 1968, 1971; Baddeley, 1986). This model will be reviewed and applied to the hierarchy of cognitive tasks in Chapter 3: Human Learning.

Verbal Feedback: A Supplement

Federal regulations and ethical principles require that a formal report is generated and shared with parents following a multi-disciplinary evaluation for potential special education services (AERA, 2014; Federal Register, 2006; NASP, 2010). This evaluation report essentially contains information regarding the psycho-educational evaluation, the child’s current levels of functioning as related to the educational setting, a rationale for determining the child’s eligibility in satisfying one or more of 13 disability categories, and the child’s degree-of-need to receive specialized instruction via an Individualized Education Plan.

Multiple sources offer recommendations for report writing (Michaels, 2006; Sattler, 2008; Walrath, Willis, Dumont, 2014). Of greatest importance among these recommendations, the report is to be written clearly and objectively for its intended target audience (i.e. parents, teachers, administrators). Abbreviations and jargon are to be avoided and sentences are to be short with each directly contributing to the overall purpose of the document. The report should be concise but adequate in length. Biased terms are to be eliminated and the child’s levels of functioning are to be described from a strengths-based, rather than deficit approach. These recommendations are intended to improve the readability of the report and parents’ understanding of its content. However, despite the best intentions of the report’s author, the report serves as a legal document and is the final product of the evaluation process. Thus, it is typically lengthy and it has the risk of being written in a legalese tone with complex terminology, standard scores, and an abundance of details.

It is unfair to expect an individual, such as a parent who is not specifically trained in psycho-educational assessment, to understand the contents of a report without supplementary aids and assistance. These aids and assistance occur through the verbal feedback of the assessment results that accompany the report. Providing verbal feedback along with written report has been shown to help build therapeutic relationships and allow opportunity for questions to be answered more thoroughly (Allen, Montgomery, Tubman, Frazier, & Escovar, 2003). Thus, the Feedback Model presented in this text is intended to supplement, not supplant, the formal report that is generated at the conclusion of the evaluation process. In fact, as will be reviewed in Chapter 6: Creating a Permanent Product with the Parent: Utilizing the Feedback Model, an initial step in the feedback process is to describe the goal ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures and Table
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 The Feedback Model’s Necessity
• 3 Human Learning
• 4 Parents and Special Education Meetings
• 5 Prerequisite Practitioner Skills to Utilizing the Feedback Model
• 6 Creating a Permanent Product with the Parent: Utilizing the Feedback Model
• 7 Utilizing the Feedback Model with Diverse Populations
• 8 Application
• 9 Conclusion
• Index