Writing Useful, Accessible, and Legally Defensible Psychoeducational Reports E-Book

Michael Hass

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Fachliteratur
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 355

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

PRACTICAL GUIDANCE ON WRITING USEFUL, ACCESSIBLE, AND LEGALLY DEFENSIBLE PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL REPORTS From clearly identifying reasons for referral to making recommendations based on assessment results, Writing Useful, Accessible, and Legally Defensible Psychoeducational Reports offers practical guidance for creating reports that enhance the understanding of children and their strengths and challenges in order to better meet their educational and functional needs. The authors offer step-by-step guidelines for developing an assessment plan in a collaborative process with parents, teachers, and other professionals, choosing appropriate assessment and data collection tools, gathering relevant information, and providing clear and feasible individualized recommendations that directly respond to referral concerns in a format easily understood by parents and teachers. Ideal for graduate students in school psychology, school psychologists, and other professionals in related fields who work with children in a school setting, Writing Useful, Accessible, and Legally Defensible Psychoeducational Reports: * Provides specific suggestions for increasing the usefulness and accessibility of reports including readability, positive phrasing, and vocabulary * Illustrates how to develop well-formed questions and how to choose assessment tools to answer referral questions * Reviews the legal mandates of report writing and discusses what must be included * Demonstrates how to accurately document and integrate data from record review, interviews, observations, and tests * Discusses how the use of the referral-based consultative assessment and report writing model can promote more active involvement in collaboration, prevention, and intervention * Features numerous real-world cases, helpful checklists, examples of question-driven referral reports, and a model interview protocol

Leseprobe

Contents

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: Why Is Another Book on Report Writing Needed?

Report Writing Is Important

Assessment and Report Writing Consumes a Lot of Our Time and Is a Fundamental Task for School Psychologists

Reports Should Clearly Communicate Information to Consumers That Makes a Difference in the Lives of the Children Involved

Chapter 2: What Makes a Report Legally Defensible?

Understand the Difference Between What Legally Must Be Included in Your Reports and What Must Be True About Your Assessment

What Must Be True About Your Evaluations (and Therefore Reflected in Your Reports) According to Federal Legal Mandate?

The Evaluation Should Be Comprehensive

The Evaluator Should Use a Variety of Assessment Tools or Approaches That Gather Functional and Relevant Data

The Evaluation Should Be Fair

The Evaluator Should Be Competent

The Procedures Used Should Be Valid and Reliable

Chapter 3: How Do I Make My Reports More Useful to Consumers?

Write Your Report with the Audience in Mind

Useful Reports Clearly Answer the Referral Questions

Useful Reports Focus on Strengths as Well as Needs

Useful Reports Provide Concrete and Feasible Recommendations for Educational Planning

Useful Reports Are Clear and Understandable

Readability Impacts the Usefulness of Your Reports

Increase Readability by Reducing Professional Jargon

Increase the Readability of Psychoeducational Reports by Cutting Words and Using Active Voice

Increase the Readability of Psychoeducational Reports by Considering the Length, Including Amount and Quality of Information

Increase the Readability of Your Report by Using a Report Structure That Integrates Data and Highlights Relevant Evaluation Findings

Referral-Based Reports Synthesize Fundamental Research Findings with Best Practice

Chapter 4: Step-by-Step, How Do I Write Useful and Legally Defensible Reports?

How Do I Clearly Communicate the Purpose of the Evaluation?

How Do I Develop Well-Formed Evaluation Questions?

How Do I Write Present Levels of Functioning Questions?

How Do I Write Diagnostic or Disability Questions?

How Do I Write Solution-Based, or “What Do We Do About This” Questions?

The Background Information Provides Developmental and Educational Perspective to Your Report

Assessment Data from Multiple Sources Is Integrated into Themes

How Do I Write Useful Recommendations?

Chapter 5: How Do I Solve Practical Problems Along the Way to Question-Driven Report Writing?

Remind Me: Why Is Another Book on Report Writing Needed?

Why Should I Change My Report Writing Model?

What Should Be My First Steps Toward Transitioning to This Report Style?

My School District or Agency Already Has a Template That We Are Required to Use; How Can I Work Within These Constraints?

This Style of Report Writing Seems Time Consuming and I Am Already Swamped with Work! Is This True?

Do Referral-Based Reports Vary, Depending on the Characteristics of the Child?

Do Triennial Reevaluations Differ from Other Reports?

How Do Charts and Tables Fit into a Questions-Based Thematic Report?

Do I Need to Use a Specific Format When Writing?

Last Words

Appendix I–Checklist for a Useful and Legally Defensible Report

Appendix II–What Do These Reports Look Like?

Appendix III–Interview protocol

References

Author Index

Subject Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 4.1 Evaluation Cycle

Figure 4.2 Integration of Information in Response to Evaluation Question

Figure 4.3 Thinking Through Recommendations

List of Tables

Table 2.1 Does My Assessment Contain Functional Information About the Student’s Skill?

Table 2.2 Does My Assessment Contain Functional Information About the Student’s Skill?

Table 2.3 Does My Assessment Contain Relevant Information About the Student’s Skill?

Table 2.4 Does My Assessment Contain Relevant Information About the Student’s Skill?

Table 3.1 Incorporating Strengths as Well as Needs into an Evaluation

Table 3.2 If Your Headings Look Like This . . .

Table 4.1 Disability Categories in IDEA 2004

Table 4.2 Related Services in IDEA 2004

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Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

WRITING USEFUL, ACCESSIBLE, AND LEGALLY DEFENSIBLE PSYCHOEDUCATIONAL REPORTS

MICHAEL R. HASS

JEANNE ANNE M. CARRIERE

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data:

Hass, Michael R.

Writing useful, accessible, and legally defensible psychoeducational reports / Michael R. Hass, Ph.D., Jeanne Anne M. Carriere, Ph.D.—1

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-118-20565-5 (pbk.); ISBN 978-1-118-82494-8 (ebk); ISBN 978-1-118-85239-2 (ebk)

1. Individualized education programs. 2. Report writing. 3. Children with disabilities—Education—Evaluation. I. Carriere, Jeanne Anne M. II. Title.

LC4019.H384 2014

371.2—dc23

2013044598

For our students: Your intelligence, commitment, and tolerance for ambiguity continually inspire us to be the best practitioners and professors we can be.

—MH & JAC

For my trinity of mentors: Steven Hodge for lighting the fire, Judy McBride for providing the fuel, and Michael Hass for modeling containment and escalation methods for a long and memorable burn.

—JAC

Acknowledgments

We feel a great deal of gratitude for the family, friends, and colleagues who have supported us through this process. Thank you to our editor, Marquita Flemming, who initially proposed this book. Her vision, patience, and guidance have been our driving force.

A big thank-you to Patricia Harriman and our Wiley “editing crew.” We are also indebted to our colleagues, Kelly Kennedy and John Brady, who provided lightning-fast comments and critique. This is a better book because of all their efforts.

A special thank-you to all of our colleagues in the Counseling and School Psychology Program, whose collegiality, support, and wicked sense of humor keep us from taking ourselves too seriously.

Michael would like to thank Gabrielle for her faith in his abilities and for always meeting the statement “I have to work on the book” with encouragement and support.

Jeanne Anne thanks her husband, Steve, and daughters, Lila and Scarlett, for their understanding of her recent long hours and their loving encouragement when deadlines loomed. She would also like to thank her parents, who have always been her biggest supporters.

Finally, we thank our readers. We sincerely hope you will find this book useful.

Chapter 1Why Is Another Book on Report Writing Needed?

Jeanne Anne’s husband is a teacher. Early in their relationship, as she was spending her Saturday afternoon writing psychoeducational reports, he flippantly asked, “Why are you spending so much time on those? Nobody reads them anyway.” At the time, her frustration hindered her ability to engage in a meaningful conversation about his opinion, probably because at some level she knew he was correct. She truly had become a gatekeeper on the way to Special Education services and her report was simply a step to be completed. It had no purpose other than to sit in a file. A seed was planted, and what would become a professional journey to improve the usefulness of her reports began. Along the way she met Michael, whose journey probably began on a much less dramatic note. He was spending a lot of time and effort on his assessments, had important to things to say, and wanted people to read his reports and consider his recommendations.

This book is the result of our efforts both as practitioners to write better reports and as educators to teach others to do so as well. Our goal for our students and ourselves is to write reports that represent children and their needs in a way that is useful to the stakeholders involved with those children, especially parents and teachers. Recognizing that special education has become increasingly litigious, we also want those reports to reflect the ethical and legal demands and constraints put upon us by our professional standards as well as state and federal laws and regulations. Our position is that we can accomplish both and it is not necessary to sacrifice usefulness and accessibility to meet legal and ethical mandates. We take this a step further and argue that making our reports more accessible and useful to consumers will itself make them more ethical and legally compliant.

We have written and read many psychological reports during careers that between us span over 40 years of experience as practitioners and 26 years as trainers of school psychologists. During that time, we estimate that we have written over a thousand psychological reports and read at least that many of our students’ reports. As university trainers, we have also read reports from dozens of local school districts. Things have changed considerably over our careers. When Jeanne Anne began her first school psychology job in 1993, she created handwritten reports using a three-page template, essentially a psychological fill-in-the-blank format. When Michael began his career, several years before Jeanne Anne, his reports were also handwritten, but the fill-in-the-blank template was only two pages long. It is clear to us that these early efforts at representing children in a written document contained very little information that was useful to parents or educators. Currently, we work in an area of the country where 30- to 50-page reports based on highly detailed templates is the norm. Unfortunately, we often find these much longer documents still do not contain much that is truly useful to parents and teachers.

A few years ago, we took the ideas we had developed as practitioners and trainers and created a workshop that we then presented at local, state, and national conferences. To our surprise, these workshops were often filled to capacity, frequently with people sitting on the floor around the edges of the room. This taught us that although practitioners write many reports, they are not necessarily confident in their skills. We also discovered that practitioners write reports with a striking range of formats and lengths.

We have noted a trend toward writing longer, less comprehensible reports in the name of legal defensiveness. We believe that most of these reports have several problems that hinder their usefulness to readers and actually make them less legally defensible. For example, they often lack focus and cohesiveness, have little actual interpretation, do not provide useful recommendations, and use vocabulary that only professionals with graduate degrees could possibly understand. They are also typically full of boilerplate legal language that does not appear to serve any useful purpose, including that of making the assessment or report more legally defensive. In addition to this legal filler language, a concerned parent or teacher often has to wade through many vague and generic statements that could be about nearly any child assessed to discover useful information unique to the specific child they are concerned about.

One goal in writing this book is to push back against this trend. We challenge the notion that longer is better and that the way we conduct our assessments and write reports should be guided by fear of legal action. Simply put, we believe that an assessment that directly responds to the concerns of parents and teachers and a report that communicates the results of that assessment in a way that the reader can easily understand is not only best practice but also easier to legally defend than the 40- or 50-page monster reports we often see. This book represents our current best thinking about how to accomplish this. As we explain in detail later in the book, the model we propose is based on a synthesis of published research, an analysis of professional guidelines, reflections on our own experience writing reports and teaching report writing, and what one of our colleagues calls PJs (professional judgments).

In this book, we advocate for question-driven assessments and suggest that these questions serve to frame reports. In that spirit, we have structured the book in the same way. Each chapter begins with a question. For example, the title of this chapter is “Why is another book on report writing needed?” Following that, we have a series of sections and subsections that we conceptualize as follow-up questions and themes. Theme statements are concise statements that summarize the major finding of the information that follows. This also follows the structure we advocate for reports. In Chapter 1, the themes include: (a) Report writing is important; (b) Assessment and report writing consumes a lot of our time and is a fundamental task of school psychologists; and (c) Reports should clearly communicate important information to consumers that makes a difference in the lives of the children involved.

We have used many examples to illustrate our points throughout this book, including six sample reports in Appendix II. To preserve the confidentiality of those involved, we have changed all identifying information and used pseudonyms for the personal names, schools, school districts, and agencies discussed. To retain a level of authenticity, some examples contain actual assessment instruments. By including them in our examples, we are not endorsing or opposing the use of these instruments.

Report Writing Is Important

Throughout this book, we will discuss assessment as well as report writing. The reason for this is that the two cannot be separated. As succinctly stated by Brown-Chidsey and Steege, “No assessment is likely to be useful until, or unless, the findings are communicated to those in a position to implement solutions” (2005, p. 267). The value of a well-designed and focused assessment is easily obscured by a poorly organized and written report and, conversely, a poorly designed assessment cannot be rescued by a beautifully written report. School psychology graduate programs pay considerable attention to assessment but, if judged by the practitioners who attend our workshops, less attention to report writing.

Assessment can be defined as the process of gathering information to inform decisions (Salvia, Ysseldyke, & Bolt, 2007). No matter your philosophy about what constitutes a valid or useful assessment, the process involves collecting and evaluating data for the purpose of responding to stakeholders’ questions and concerns, identifying needs and strengths, and making meaningful recommendations. These data are also used to make decisions regarding further assessment, diagnosis or disability classification, and instructional planning (Salvia, Ysseldyke, & Bolt, 2007; Sattler, 1992).

We argue that report writing is a critical yet undervalued part of the evaluation process. Unfortunately, practitioners often view report writing as a perfunctory post-assessment task. The report is sometimes completed the night before or even minutes before a meeting, without giving team members, including parents, the opportunity to review the findings before making critical decisions about the student’s education. Although they are frequently not given the same attention as other aspects of the assessment process, psychological reports are important because they become the basis for the multidisciplinary teams’ decisions regarding eligibility for special education and the foundation for recommending services and intervention. In other words, reports guide all of the decisions and planning that follow an assessment.

Assessment and Report Writing Consumes a Lot of Our Time and Is a Fundamental Task for School Psychologists

School psychology is a relatively young profession. Fagan and Wise (2000) conceptually divided the developmental history of school psychology into two eras. The first era, approximately the end of the 19th century to midway through the 20th century, was marked by widespread school reform. Early-20th-century political and sociocultural influences, specifically compulsory education laws, the corresponding increase in public school enrollment, and the development of intelligence testing, opened the door for the quantification of learning and achievement. This set the stage for the standardization of children’s progress in school (Cook, 1912; Frey, 2005; National Conference of State Legislators, 2007). During this period, many types of educational and psychological practitioners provided services within the school setting. These services typically focused on assessment and diagnosis of learning difficulties.

The second era, midcentury to present, has seen the development of school psychologists’ professional identity and an expansion of specialized training programs. For the first time, the majority of professionals practicing as school psychologists were trained in programs specifically designed for school psychologists. Throughout both of these eras, psychological assessment, diagnosis, and specialized program placement were the dominant roles of school psychologists (Fagan, 1990).

The results of several surveys of practitioners done over the last 40 years reflect this conclusion. In 1970, Farling and Hoedt (1971) conducted the first nationwide survey of school psychologists with the goal of identifying issues, concerns, and trends in the field. Their findings suggest that at that time the roles and functions of school psychologists were largely defined by assessment-related activities such as student evaluations, report writing, and parent–teacher meetings.

With the 1975 passage of the Education for All Handicapped Children Act (i.e., Public Law 94-142), it became public policy to educate children with disabilities at the public’s expense. PL 94-142 guaranteed parents of students with disabilities the right to be actively involved in their child’s educational planning. They had the right to request assessment and, for the first time, had access to their children’s records, including psychological reports (Weddig, 1984). Opinions regarding the impact this would have on the practice of school psychology were at opposite ends of the spectrum. Some thought the legislation would lead to more time spent on testing and other assessment activities while others predicted that it would lead to more opportunities for an expanded model of practice (Goldwasser, Meyers, Christenson, & Graden, 1983).

Eight years after the passing of PL 94-142, Goldwasser, Meyers, Christenson, and Graden (1983) undertook a national survey investigating school psychologists’ perceptions of the legislation’s impact on their roles. Respondents answered questions regarding evaluation procedures, Individualized Education Program (IEP) team membership, changes in role and function, due process participation, future training needs, and overall effects of the legislation. Two factors had negative implications for the psychologists’ ability to engage in a broader range of services: an increased focus on students with disabilities, leading to limited opportunities to engage in preventative measures; and an increase in paperwork and administrative tasks, also reducing the time to engage in a wider range of professional activities. Surprisingly, the researchers found that the legislation had minimal impact on the overall roles of the respondents. School psychologists still spent the majority of their time engaged in diagnostic evaluations and related activities.

Researchers found similar survey results over the next 20 years. Smith (1984) surveyed a nationwide, random sample of school psychologists practicing in public school settings. Results indicated the majority of the psychologists’ time was spent in assessment (54%), followed by intervention (23%), and consultation (19%). According to the survey results, school psychologists desired a reduction in assessment-based activities and an increase in intervention and consultation. In their survey of school psychology practitioners, Hutton, Dubes, and Muir (1992) reported that 53% of school psychologists’ time was spent on assessment-related activities.

Clearly, research on the roles and functions of school psychologists suggests that assessment and related activities, including report writing, has shaped our practice throughout our century-long history (Curtis, Hunley, & Grier, 2002; Farling & Hoedt, 1971; Gilman & Medway, 2007; Hutton, Dubes, & Muir, 1992; Smith, 1984). Although school psychologists have a broad range of skills, we continue to be engaged in assessment-related endeavors more than in all other direct and indirect services combined. Given this, we know that for the vast majority of school psychologists, daily practice is still closely connected with assessment, diagnosis, and classification of students (Merrell, Ervin, & Gimpel, 2006). Indeed, in their comprehensive discussion of school psychology, Fagan and Wise (2000) contend that school psychologists’ expertise in assessment has been the foundation of advancement and success in our field.

Over the last half century, many practitioners and researchers have called for an expansion of the role of school psychologists (Goldwasser, Meyers, Christenson, & Graden, 1983; Reschley, 2000). Shinn (2002) reported that school psychologists want to broaden their roles by increasing the time spent in non-assessment-related activities such as implementing social-emotional interventions, academic progress monitoring, and direct assessment methods. In 2006, Harvey surveyed 500 randomly selected members of the National Association of School Psychologists (NASP). Overall, the respondents indicated a desire to increase time spent outside of their traditional assessment role. Fifty-four percent of respondents wanted to increase their time spent in intervention progress monitoring, 48% wanted an increase in time spent on social and emotional interventions, and 56% wanted to increase their time spent in nontraditional assessment.

Given the longstanding and pervasive influence of assessment on the practice of school psychologists, the question is: Can this expertise be leveraged for more active involvement in prevention and intervention? NASP conceptualizes assessment as data-based decision making, and in the Blueprint for Training and Practice III, NASP defines competency in data-based decision making as the ability to accurately identify problems by gathering relevant data, then utilizing this integrated information in collaboration with others for better outcomes for students. NASP advocates for assessment to be conceptualized as a step in a problem-solving process that connects directly to prevention and intervention rather than a standalone activity (NASP, 2006).

We argue that psychological reports should reflect the dynamic nature of the problem-solving process and serve as a foundation for engaging in more consultation, prevention, and intervention. Bagnato (1980) has argued that psychological reports are the predominant way school psychologists demonstrate their value and effectiveness. The psychological report is a direct reflection of the quality and range of services school psychologists provide, and as the culminating activity of the problem-solving process, a well-conceptualized and well-written psychological report can be an important tool to expand our role and make our services more useful to parents and other educators.

Reports Should Clearly Communicate Information to Consumers That Makes a Difference in the Lives of the Children Involved

In order to use reports as a tool to make ourselves more useful to parents and teachers, we must first understand what their purpose is. Ownby (1997) asserts that the purpose of a report is “to communicate assessment information in a fashion appropriate to the intended reader so that the reader’s work with the client is affected” (p. 29). Although many individuals, including school administrators, outside professionals, and perhaps legal counsel, may read an assessment report hoping to better understand a child’s strengths and needs, there is a strong argument that the most important consumers of psychological reports are the students’ parents and teachers (Hagborg & Aiello-Coultier, 1994; Harvey, 1997; Weddig, 1984). Parents and teachers are the “front line” in the life of a child and the people most likely to both need and benefit from the information derived from an assessment.

It makes intuitive sense that a primary goal of psychological reports is to provide information that helps the people who live and work with children better understand their needs. Stated a different way, the goal of reports is to explicitly answer questions posed by those who referred the child for an assessment and to provide concrete recommendations (Eberst & Genshaft, 1984; Teglasi 1983). Although NASP has been relatively silent in regard to professional standards for report writing, in their Principles for Professional Ethics and Guidelines for the Provision of School Psychological Services (2010) they propose that assessment findings should be presented in language clearly understood by the recipient and that written reports should support the recipients in their work or interactions with the child. As school psychologists, we are expected not only to conduct assessments that address specific referral questions and interpret our findings in a meaningful way, but also to communicate that meaning in writing in a manner that others can understand.

If our objectives are to assist with educational planning and positively influence consumers’ interactions with the student, we need to answer the question: How can we make the information in written psychological reports more useful and accessible to teachers and parents? Yet, the information needed to answer this question is sparse and not easily accessible (Ownby, 1997). For example, NASP has published a Best Practices in School Psychology series since 1985 (Thomas & Grimes, 1985), described as “a core resource on contemporary, evidence-based knowledge necessary for competent delivery of school psychological services” (NASP, 2009, para. 3). The first and second Best Practices editions had chapters dedicated to report writing but a chapter on report writing has not been included since the 1990 edition. This is despite the fact that with each new edition, the Best Practices volumes have grown exponentially, reaching 2,600 pages in the most recent fifth edition (Thomas & Grimes, 2008). These exclusions support our conviction that best practices are not clearly defined for report writing, a fundamental part of school psychologists’ practice.

Although the assumption that school psychologists should write understandable and useful psychological reports is reflected in the NASP Principles for Professional Ethics and Guidelines for the Provision of School Psychological Services (2010), there is little specific guidance on how to accomplish this. For example, NASP guidelines state that assessment findings should be presented in language clearly understood by the recipients and that written reports should emphasize interpretation and recommendations to support the recipients in their work or interactions with the child. NASP clearly states that reports solely focusing on test scores or global statements are rarely useful yet provides little information on what the alternatives to these statements might be. We believe that this lack of clear consensus on the part of our profession is one reason that there is so much variability in reports and perhaps why supervisors of school psychologists have turned to attorneys and other people outside the profession to seek guidance on the best way to structure and write reports.

In the following chapters, we hope to fill this gap. In doing so, we also hope that our readers will take ownership of this important professional skill and learn not only to communicate clearly but to use their reports as a way to leverage a wider and more effective professional role.

We believe that report writing needs to be conceptualized as a vital part of the assessment process. We promote the use of question-driven assessments and reports as not only legally defensible, but also more accessible and useful for their most important consumers: educators and parents. As previously mentioned, the book follows the structure of a question-driven report. Each chapter title is a question and the headings within each chapter are strategic thematic statements that summarize key points. In Chapter 1, we answered the question, Why is another book on report writing needed? In the remaining chapters we address the following four questions: Chapter 2, What makes a report legally defensible?; Chapter 3, How do I make my reports more useful to consumers?; Chapter 4, Step-by-step, how do I write useful and legally defensible reports?; and Chapter 5, How do I solve practical problems along the way to question-driven report writing? At the end of the book, appendixes are included that provide tools to support a transition to more useful and legally defensible report writing, including a checklist to tell if your report is useful and legally defensible, extensive examples, and an interview protocol.

Chapter 1 Takeaway Points

Although school psychologists have a broad range of skills, we continue to be engaged in assessment-related endeavors more than all other direct and indirect services combined.

Psychoeducational reports are important because they become the basis for multidisciplinary teams’ decisions regarding eligibility for special education and the foundation for recommending services and intervention.

Report writing is a critical yet undervalued part of the evaluation process, often viewed as a perfunctory post-assessment task.

The value of a well-designed and focused assessment can be easily obscured by a poorly organized and written report and, conversely, a poorly designed assessment cannot be rescued by a beautifully written report.

We advocate for question-driven assessments and suggest that these questions serve to frame reports.

The psychological report is a direct reflection of the quality and range of services school psychologists provide, and as the culminating activity of the problem-solving process, a well-conceptualized and well-written psychological report can be an important tool to expand our role and make our services more useful to parents and other educators.

Chapter 2What Makes a Report Legally Defensible?

Special education law is, if anything, complicated. Federal law contains many undefined terms and, in several places, appears to contradict itself (McBride, Dumont, & Willis, 2011). When you add the complexity of state regulations on top of this, it is no wonder that special education administrators often turn to attorneys for guidance in how to write legally defensible reports. Also making the task of sorting through federal special education law difficult is that there are several sources of legal guidance, including the Individuals with Disability Education Improvement Act of 2004 and the subsequent Final Regulations of 2006. Other sources include case law arising from circuit courts and Supreme Court decisions as well as various memos and letters from the Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services, the Office of Special Education Programs, and the Office of Civil Rights (McBride, Dumont, & Willis, 2011). In this chapter, we hope to provide clear characteristics of a legally defensible assessment and report by incorporating legal mandates with what we consider best practices.

The Education for All Handicapped Children Act (i.e., PL94-142) was amended, reauthorized, and renamed in 1997 and again in 2004. Now called the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), IDEA 2004 and the subsequent regulations provide the framework for parental involvement in children’s educational decision making and planning. The law also secures parents’ right to request an assessment and to be included in the IEP meeting to determine appropriate educational services for their child (IDEA 300.305; 300.306).

Interestingly, the federal laws and regulations have relatively little to say about reports. The evaluating agency is required to provide a copy of the evaluation report to the parent, but federal regulations do not determine a timeline for this. Given parents’ right to inspect all relevant evaluations before a meeting, good practice and the spirit of the law suggest that they should be given copies of all reports before a meeting so they have the time to read and thoughtfully consider this information. This promotes parents’ active participation in making decisions about their children’s eligibility for special education services and developing the content of the IEP. Of course, even having sufficient time to read reports will have little benefit for parents if the reports are incomprehensible to them.

State laws and regulations can differ from federal law in that they sometimes have specific requirements for reports. For this reason, it is important to understand the legal mandates in the state(s) where you practice. For example, many Californians in our workshops are surprised to discover that the California Education Code (CEC) has several requirements for reports. These are examples of things that need to be addressed explicitly in reports. For example, CEC says that reports should include the following information (California Education Code Section 56327, a–g, 2009):

Does the student need special education and related services?

How was that need determined?

What relevant behaviors, if any, were noted during the observation of the student?

What is the relationship (impact) of that behavior to the student’s academic and social functioning?

Are there health, developmental, or medical factors that are relevant to the student’s education?

Do these factors impact a student’s education? If so, how?

Do environmental, cultural, or economic factors affect the student’s education?

As we discussed in Chapter 1, it is impossible to separate the assessment process from communicating the results of that assessment in writing. Much of the advice we have seen about how to make a report legally defensible is actually about how to make the evaluation legally defensible. The federal guidelines say nothing about what must be included in your reports but they have a lot to say about what should be true about your evaluations and therefore reflected in your report. Using your state regulations as a guide, it is essential to distinguish between what must be directly included in your reports and what must be true of your assessments. Our goal in the following section is to clarify this point.

Understand the Difference Between What Legally Must Be Included in Your Reports and What Must Be True About Your Assessment

A distinction we often discuss in our workshops is between what must be true about your evaluations and what must be explicitly included in your reports. This distinction grew out of a conversation between one of the authors and a special education attorney who was an early collaborator on this project (J. Riel, personal communication, 2009). For what must be true about your evaluation, ultimately the evaluator should be prepared to testify to the truth and accuracy of those points. To the extent possible, these “truths” about the evaluation should be evident to the readers of your reports. In other words, you should show the truth of these legal mandates rather than simply tell the reader they are true.

Another title for this section might be “Quoting the law in your report does not make it or your evaluation more legally defensible,” or perhaps even more straightforwardly, “Saying it does not make it true.” Many reports we read are full of legal-sounding boilerplate language that tells the reader that the evaluation has followed legal guidelines. Often, school psychologists have a standard set of paragraphs that they cut and paste into all their reports stating that their evaluation has met all legal guidelines, as if these boilerplate statements were protective talismans that could ward off the evil questioning of attorneys and advocates. For the most part, we believe this muddles the focus of reports, making them harder to read, and does little if anything to make them more legally defensible. For example, the following statement (or something similar) regarding assessment procedure decisions is in many of the reports we read:

The student’s primary language, ethnicity, and cultural background were taken into consideration prior to the selection of the assessment procedures. The tests chosen should be interpreted within the limits of their measured validity.

This paragraph has two parts. One makes a claim about the evaluation process and the other offers advice to the reader. When reading the claim that the evaluator took the students’ primary language, ethnicity, and cultural background into consideration prior to the selection of the assessment procedures, the first question that comes to mind is how was this done? In other words, what evidence supports the truth of this claim? Frequently, there is little actual evidence included in the report to support the claim. As for the validity advice, it is not clear how this would be helpful to a reader since the task of understanding validity and interpreting assessment results is the writer’s responsibility, not that of the parent or teacher reading the report. In other words, the burden to choose valid assessments and interpret them accurately is on the author of the report and not the reader.

Contrast the previous boilerplate language example with information about how assessment procedure decisions were made in Marie’s evaluation:

Marie’s first language was Spanish and her mother noted that she continues to speak Spanish at home with her parents. Her academic instruction has been in English since she enrolled in Kindergarten and Marie reports she speaks English with her classmates and neighborhood friends. When asked, Marie said she believes her English skills are stronger than her Spanish skills. For this reason, Marie was interviewed in English and the tests used in this assessment were administered in English. Her cognitive abilities were assessed by tests that minimized the requirement to respond verbally to questions. Additional assessment was done in Spanish to provide further information about Marie’s abilities.

This statement is not a claim but rather an explanation of how the legal and ethical mandate to consider language and culture in the evaluation process was met. Marie’s example suggests that the writer has made a reasonable good-faith effort to consider these issues in designing and conducting the evaluation. Another important difference is that this statement is about a particular child, Marie, while the first statement is generic and could be about any child. The truthfulness and accuracy of any legal claim about the evaluation process can be communicated only by information about an individual child, not by vague general statements. In contrast, the statement in the boilerplate example expects the reader to accept the statement as fact. It does not provide us with any information that allows us to judge the truthfulness of the claim. Consider also the following information, which occurred later in Marie’s report:

As part of this evaluation, Marie was administered selected tests from the Woodcock Johnson IV Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ IV COG) and the Woodcock Johnson Diagnostic Supplement to the Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ DS). Together the WJ IV COG and the WJ DS provide two measures of general intellectual ability. One, the General Intellectual Ability–Bilingual, is a measure of intellectual ability that incorporates an assessment of oral language in English and Spanish. The second, the General Intellectual Ability–Low Verbal, does not include a measure of oral language skills but instead assesses intellectual ability with tasks that have low verbal demands.