Research Into Practice

Understanding Test Findings

Understanding and Using Psychoeducational Test Findings


Sharing the results of a psychoeducational evaluation with a parent and/or child, often referred to as an informing interview, is an important part of the psychoeducational evaluation process. 

The Winston Innovation Lab conducted two complementary studies examining how psychoeducational evaluation results are communicated and understood, the details of which are summarized below.

List of 2 items.

  • Study 1

    Surveyed a geographically representative sample of 488 US parents whose children underwent psychoeducational evaluations.
    *Geographically representative of the total United States population based on US census data

  • Study 2

    Surveyed 98 psychoeducational professionals who conduct and explain these evaluations to the parents and children.

Overall Understanding of Evaluation Results

Parents indicated that they understood approximately 79% of the information presented in informing interviews, on average, and psychoeducational professionals estimated that the parents they work with understood approximately 73% of this information.

However, both parents and professionals agreed that children understand significantly less from informing interviews than do parents, with both parties estimating understanding among children at approximately 44.5%.

Dive Deeper Into Our Research

List of 4 items.

  • Time Spent Explaining Results

    Time spent in informing interviews with children significantly predicted perceived understanding in children among both professionals and parents; indeed, each one-minute increase in time spent in an informing interview with children was associated with an approximately 0.35-0.42% increase in the percentage of information these children were estimated to have understood.

    Importantly, these effects did not hold in relation to time spent with parents and understanding among these parents; thus, more time spent in informing interviews with children may be especially important. For example, these findings suggest that an additional 20 minutes spent in informing interviews with children may be associated with a nearly 10% increase in their comprehension of the information.

  • Professional Priorities and Understanding

    Relative to parents, professionals considered communicating evaluation results to children to be significantly less important.

    Additionally, professionals believed communicating evaluation results to children to be a significantly less essential part of their job, felt significantly less effective in communicating to children, and reported devoting significantly less effort toward attempting to do so. Thus, as a general rule, professionals appear to be prioritizing the understanding of parents over the understanding of children.

  • Graduate Training and Its Influence

    On average, professionals reported that their graduate training placed significantly more emphasis on helping parents understand the results of psychoeducational evaluations (relative to children). Moreover, professionals whose graduate-level training placed less emphasis on helping children understand evaluation results also:
    • Viewed explaining the results to children as significantly less important 
    • Devoted significantly less effort toward communicating results to children
    • Perceived themselves to be significantly less effective in doing so
    Importantly, the mean duration of clinical practice in our sample was 15.7 years—suggesting long-lasting effects of graduate-school training.

  • Emotional Influences on Parents’ Understanding

    Among parents, informing interviews appeared to be strongly emotional experiences, and these emotions may affect their understanding of psychoeducational evaluations.

    Results revealed that parents who reported experiencing one or more negative emotions during their most recent informing interview reported significantly poorer understanding than parents not reporting such emotions. It is possible, then, that the presence of negative emotions may interfere with parents’ ability to process the information being presented.
THANK YOU TO OUR SUPPORTERS
This work has been made possible thanks to the generous financial support of the John Leopold Weil and Geraldine Rickard Weil Memorial Charitable Foundation. We thank both the Weil Foundation and the Winston Preparatory School Board of Trustees for their continued support.


Learn More About...

List of 3 items.

  • Project Leadership

    • Jonathan Cohen, PhD  (Senior Advisor, Winston Innovation Lab)
    • Amber DeBono, PhD (Director of Research, Winston Innovation Lab)
    • Benjamin Gelbart, PhD (Project Manager, Winston Innovation Lab)
    • Michele Heimbauer, MA, CCC-SLP (Associate Director, Winston Innovation Lab)
    • Sheldon Horowitz, EdD (Senior Advisor, Winston Innovation Lab)
    • Elizabeth Mendelsohn, MA (Director, Winston Innovation Lab)

  • Professional Advisory Committee

    Educational Consultant
    Prior, Senior Manager of Family & Community Engagement at National PTA

    Professor, MGH Institute of Health Professions
    Director, Brain, Education, and Mind (BEAM) Lab 

    Professor, University of California, Santa Barbara

    Director, The Yellin Center for Mind, Brain, and Education

  • Partner Organizations

    • Council for Exceptional Children (CEC)
    • Learning Disabilities Association of America (LDA) 
    • National Association of School Psychologists (NASP)
    • School Neuropsychology Institute (SNI)
Winston Preparatory School is a leading school for students with learning disabilities, including dyslexia, executive functioning difficulties (ADHD), and non-verbal learning disorders (NVLD).

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