Guidelines for School Report Writing

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For report writing in the schools as a follow-up to IAT (Intervention Assistance Team) and MFE (Multifactored Evaluation), I do not use a particular form, but I do follow specific guidelines. The guidelines I follow came about following a special education staff meeting and the suggestions given are followed throughout our district.

There are four main sections of the report format: identifying information (name, address, DOB, grade level, and teacher); background information; assessments; and interpretations/summary. In background information, I relay dates and interventions implemented during the student's IAT. Intervention plans and progress from those interventions are noted in this section, followed by the specific reasons for the referral to the MFE. This paragraph typically concludes with the decision to initiate an evaluation and identifies a suspected area of disability.

The assessment section follows. I begin by describing the student's entry into the testing situation and report his/her social pragmatic skills of engaging, maintaining, and initiating conversation. I note how comfortable the student is with the testing situation as well and if this changes by the end of the assessments. Each assessment is described and if a formal tool is used, I list the name of the test, the standard score, and standard deviation used to analyze student performance. (ie., The Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test-III, based on a standard score =100 with a standard deviation =15, was utilized to measure receptive vocabulary knowledge. I then describe what the student is doing during the test (ie., "The student is presented with four black-line drawings and asked to point to the picture which matches what the examiner names.") The score obtained by the student is reported in this section for each formal test used. If informal assessments are used (informal writing sample or oral language sample), I report the percentages the child demonstrated per target. This type of description is particularly helpful to a parent so that they can better understand what skills their child is doing during the various assessments.

Before I leave the assessment section, I do comment on test-taking behavior and strategies I observed during the various tests. Student strengths as well as areas of concern are noted in this section. It is important to report observed behaviors and avoid interpreting them at this point.

During the interpretation and summary section, I report if the student's skills in the various areas assessed (social pragmatics, articulation, oral fluency, receptive and expressive language, written language) fall within the average, above average, or below average ranges. Using formal test guidelines, it is possible to make finer interpretations by adding modifiers such as moderately or severely below the average range when comparing student performance to their same age peers. I follow up with suggestions of strategies that may help the student in his/her classroom (ie., visual models, multistep problems or directions presented in simpler steps). I am careful to not make any statement as to whether or not a student qualifies for the disability which is suspected; this determination is a team decision which is made by all members at the MFE meeting and documented on the final pages of the MFE paperwork following the discussion of all team members' findings.

I have found these guidelines helpful in my report writing in my district. I believe the language used in these reports is both professional and parent-friendly when presently critical information about a student, highlighting both strengths and areas of need. More importantly, these components lend themselves to the next possible step, planning for a more in-depth interventions or an IEP.

Barb Miller, speech/language pathologist, obtained her training from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. She has been employed by Hamilton County Educational Service Center (HCESC) for 26 years and assigned to Norwood City Schools since 1980. She particularly enjoys helping students rehearse and master their communication skills within their classroom environments and had been a part of a three year training grant to provided classroom intervention with Norwood regular education teachers, the University of Cincinnati, and HCESC. Barb currently works at Norwood View, Norwood Middle, and Norwood High School. She resides in Anderson Township with her husband, her three daughters, and her large dog and tailless cat. Barb's hobbies include reading and teaching swimming lessons to students with special needs.