Report writing for different audiences
What every report needs, how to report scores so they are understood, and what a GP, a court, an insurer, an employer, a school or a government agency needs from a psychologist's report.
Quick check
Answer each one in your own words, then open the model answer to compare. Signed in, your answers are kept and marked, and the plan uses them.
1.A psychologist in private practice assesses a 7-year-old boy for learning difficulties on a paediatrician's referral. The report covers his developmental history, his parents' separation and the paediatrician's questions about attention. His parents ask for the same report to go to his school. What should the psychologist do?
Model answer
School files are held under less stringent confidentiality than a practice's records, and the school needs different things from the paediatrician. With the parents' consent, the psychologist would write a separate report for the school on his learning and what will help in class, rather than send the full clinical report as asked.
2.A psychologist in a community mental health team drafts a cognitive assessment report for a 45-year-old woman. The summary ends with a new suggestion that she may be autistic, which appears nowhere in the body. What should the psychologist do before signing?
Model answer
The summary should not add anything that is not in the body, and some readers will read only the summary. If the assessment raised the possibility, the psychologist would describe what was observed in the body and recommend an autism assessment, rather than leave a diagnosis suggested in the summary without its evidence.
3.A solicitor reads a psychologist's draft report on a 44-year-old man's psychological injury and asks for two changes: the date of the accident is wrong, and the opinion on prognosis should be "less guarded". What should the psychologist do?
Model answer
A legal report can be amended for factual errors, but changing an opinion at a solicitor's request is inappropriate. The psychologist would correct the date, keep the prognosis as it stands unless the evidence changes it, and date the amended report and keep the original, rather than refuse both changes to appear independent.
4.A psychologist in private practice is writing a report for the parents of an 8-year-old girl whose Full Scale IQ on the WISC-V is 85, with a 90 per cent confidence interval of 80 to 91. The parents have asked for "the IQ number" so they can tell the school. How would the psychologist report it?
Model answer
A score is an estimate, and the confidence interval shows the range in which her true score is likely to fall. The psychologist would give the range and the percentile rank, explained in plain words against children of her age, alongside what her profile means for her learning, rather than give a single number the school may treat as exact.
5.A psychologist assesses a 40-year-old man with cerebral palsy and a speech impairment for a disability support application. The man points to his answers, and the psychologist allows extra time on the timed subtests. The support coordinator asks for the index scores without comment. What should the psychologist do?
Model answer
The report must describe the accommodations and modifications, the reasons for them and their likely effect, and extra time on timed subtests means those scores cannot be read against the norms. The psychologist would describe how the tests were given and report the affected scores with that limit stated, rather than list the index scores as if the tests had been given in the standard way.