Diagnostician-Parent Communication

Abstract

This study investigated whether there exists a communication gap between a diagnostician and the parents of children evaluated for learning difficulty in the classroom. The focus involved how accurately the diagnostician relayed information; the extent of the possible gap between what the diagnostician said and what the parents perceived immediately after the interpretation; and then one week later. Twenty children having some type of academic difficulty were given complete psychoeducational evaluations. The parents of each child were given an interpretation of the test results with the session recorded. Following the interpretation, the diagnostician and the parents filled out forms indicating their perceptions of what was said. A week later, parents were asked to fill out another form to see if the parents' perception of the interpretation changed over time. At a later time, an independent rater listened to the tapes and rated what the diagnostician actually told the parents. There was 47 percent agreement between the diagnostician and the parents' responses immediately after the interpretation. A week later agreement was 44 percent. A comparison of parental responses immediately after the interpretation and their responses one week later yielded 71 percent agreement. Findings suggest poor communication between evaluator and parents with parents more consistent in their own recollection than in their recollection of what was actually told to them.