Effects of Developmental Evaluations on Parents of Infants and Young Children (Assessment, Diagnostic, Preschool).

This exploratory study addressed the question of how parents of young children with special developmental needs perceive and react to their child's first developmental evaluation. The study method, completed with eighteen families, included a questionnaire for parents before these evaluations, observations of the evaluations, and two sets of open-ended interviews designed to explore parents' perceptions and reactions at different points in the assessment process. Ratings completed after the observations and interviews provided data used to explore the evaluation situation for possible relationships between specific features of evaluations and corresponding parent reactions. Themes that emerged from the questionnaires and interviews suggested that parents come to evaluations with specific developmental observations of their children and an accurate sense of whether their children have developmental problems, but with extremely limited knowledge about assessments. They want an evaluator to offer a great deal of information about the test, their child's needs, and recommendations, but they often cannot formulate questions to elicit this information. Evaluations seemed to work most effectively in the context of a continuing relationship between evaluator and parents, with opportunities before, during, and after the test session for the evaluator to offer information as well as to seek information from parents about the child's abilities. Analysis of interview ratings suggested that (a) parents with more active involvement during evaluations may remember more information from the evaluation, (b) parents who are helped to contribute information about their child and to underst and the purposes and meaning of developmental tests may see an evaluation as more fairly representing their child's abilities, and (c) many factors (e.g., evaluator's manner and competence, how much parents learned) interact to determine parents' overall satisfaction with an evaluation. In addition, numerous specific recommendations about ways to arrange evaluations to best meet parents' needs for recognition, underst and ing, information, and support emerged from both interviews and ratings. Finally, the numerous practical implications that emerged from the study affirmed the value of carefully listening to parents, allowing them to teach professionals about parents' needs and their reactions to services regarding their children.PhDSpecial educationUniversity of Michiganhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/159942/1/8412152.pd