Accessible Evaluation Reports
Short examples and practical guidance for writing psychological reports that families and school teams can understand and use.
My approach
I organize findings around the reader’s questions and the child’s everyday functioning. Clear writing should help people understand the evidence, its limits, and the next steps.
STEPS in practice
STEPS covers Structure, Test results, Examples, Psychological jargon, and Sentences. Bejnö, Sonning, Backman, and Klintwall studied these practices using reports about a fictional child, Sven. Sheila Desai and I discussed the work in Communiqué. Below, I share English teaching adaptations of selected Swedish OSF passages, with explanations of my choices. Both versions in each comparison use the same source facts and were rewritten for this guide; they are not verbatim translations of the study reports.
1. Structure around the question
Before: Parent interview: Sven has trouble remembering instructions. Teacher interview: He has difficulty starting and finishing schoolwork. He sometimes completes mathematics tasks when a teacher helps him work through them orally.
Revised: Following instructions and completing work: Sven’s parents describe difficulty remembering instructions. His teacher reports trouble starting and finishing schoolwork. In mathematics, he has sometimes completed tasks when the teacher talks through the steps with him.
Why I would write it this way: The heading brings related information together while keeping each source visible. The reader can see the difficulty and a condition under which work has been completed. That observation is more useful than leaving the family to assemble the pattern across separate interview sections.
Apply it: Bring together the information needed to answer one question. Keep disagreement between sources visible when it matters.
Source: standard report, pages 1–2; STEPS report, pages 2–3. English teaching adaptation.
2. Explain what the test result means
Before: On the WISC-V, Coding and Symbol Search scaled scores were both 6. The Processing Speed Index was described as clearly below average.
Revised: Sven’s scores on two timed tasks involving coding and visual search were below the average range for his age. Detailed scores are provided in the appendix.
Why I would write it this way: The narrative tells the reader what happened in the assessment. The appendix preserves the numbers for professional review. I would use classroom evidence to describe his pace at school and would not infer an instructional method from these scores alone.
Apply it: Explain the finding and its limits. A technical label should not carry more meaning than the evidence supports.
Source: standard report, page 4; STEPS report, pages 2 and 6. English teaching adaptation.
3. Show the behavior behind the description
Before: Sven was distracted during the computerized attention task and took time to return to it.
Revised: During the computerized attention task, Sven’s phone vibrated. He became distracted and took time to return his attention to the task.
Why I would write it this way: The revised passage includes the documented event that helps the reader understand the observation. It also preserves a condition relevant to interpreting the assessment. One episode should not be turned into a claim about how he functions everywhere.
Apply it: Use an example that was actually observed or reported. Identify its source and setting.
Source: standard report, page 3; STEPS report, page 2. English teaching adaptation.
4. Replace jargon with a clear description
Before: Sven has initiation difficulties, primarily in relation to schoolwork.
Revised: Sven has trouble getting started on schoolwork.
Why I would write it this way: The revision preserves the meaning without asking the reader to translate a professional term. The next sentence should explain when this happens and what the available evidence shows. Changing the wording does not tell us the cause.
Apply it: Replace a technical term when an ordinary phrase conveys the same meaning. Explain terms the reader needs to know.
Source: standard report, page 5; STEPS report, page 3. English teaching adaptation.
5. Give each sentence a manageable job
Before: According to his teacher, getting started on tasks and completing them is Sven’s greatest challenge and causes him the most difficulty, although the work he produces is usually of good quality.
Revised: His teacher describes starting and finishing tasks as Sven’s greatest difficulty. The work he produces is usually of good quality.
Why I would write it this way: The revision keeps an important distinction: difficulty completing work can coexist with good-quality work. Shortening the sentence makes both findings easier to notice without changing either one.
Apply it: Separate ideas when a sentence asks the reader to hold too much at once. Preserve qualifications such as “usually” and identify who supplied the information.
Source: standard report, page 2; STEPS report, page 3. English teaching adaptation.
From findings to recommendations
This is additional practice guidance, illustrated with the fictional case above.
Too general: Provide support for task completion.
A more usable proposal: For independent assignments, have the teacher review the first step with Sven and check that he has begun. Agree on when to check back. Track whether this helps him start and complete work, and adjust the support if it does not.
The proposal responds to the reported difficulty and to the teacher’s experience of helping him work through a task. It specifies an action and a way to examine its usefulness. This is a proposed support to try, not an intervention already shown to work for this child.
Reviewing a section with your team
Choose one section from a draft and ask a colleague to explain the main finding in their own words. Discuss whether the source of that finding is clear, whether the interpretation goes beyond it, and whether the next step follows from the evidence. Revise the passage, then check it again with its intended reader when feasible.
This is a discussion exercise for supervision, not a validated scoring instrument. The original STEPS questionnaires offer another way to see what researchers asked readers to understand and recall.
Research and source materials
The STEPS study found better readability ratings and immediate recall among teacher-education students reading the revised report. It did not establish which writing element produced the effect or whether the format improved services or student outcomes.
My own report-writing research used fictional cases and accessible formats informed by C.L.E.A.R. Those original examples predate the STEPS study and provide another set of materials for examining report organization and language.
Training and consultation
I work with professionals and school teams on accessible report writing, assessment, and interpretation.