Writing Psychological Reports: A Guide for Clinicians

The book consists of seven chapters, and begins with an overview of issues to be considered when endeavoring to write a psychological report. Such issues include the rationale for report writing, general guidelines for report writing, confidentiality and ethics, the emergence of test computerization, characteristics of the report writer. The first chapter concludes by presenting a suggested outline for reports, upon which the majority of the forthcoming text is based.

The text then delves into each aspect of the suggested outline's "pre-results" sections. Information included in this section involves report heading and demographics, reason for referral, notification of purpose and limits of confidentiality, evaluation instruments and sources of information, background information, and behavioral observations. The purpose of each section, along with an explanation of appropriate word usage and section length is given.

From the same outline previously offered, the book then examines the results portion of a report, starting with intellectual and cognitive functioning. Dimensions of these constructs covered include orientation, sensation/perception, intellectual and cognitive function, academic achievement, language development, and other cognitive functions such as visuomotor functioning, abstractness-concreteness, calculating, and memory. Incorporating data suggesting localization and degree of impairment, as well as other questionable findings is then discussed.