Jargon as a Psychological Construct? A Multidecade Analysis of Communication Failure in Evaluation Reports
Abstract
For seven decades, studies have asked whether the people who receive psychological evaluation reports understand what they say. Existing research has largely measured reader satisfaction rather than what readers comprehend, recall, or interpret. This narrative synthesis identified six studies, conducted between 1984 and 2025 in school psychology and, most recently, child neuropsychology, in which 253 readers were assigned to a standard-format report and had their comprehension scored directly. Comprehension ranged from 46.6% to 61.1% (weighted mean = 55.2%) and showed no detectable change across four decades. In every study that also scored an accessible version of the same report, readers understood it better, with scores from 60% to 82%. Recent evidence from pediatric neuropsychology shows the same gap: parents rated their understanding of their child's report highly, yet almost half could not state the child's diagnoses without error. Effective formats combined plain-language wording with one or more of domain-based organization, concrete behavioral examples, and elaborated recommendations. These findings suggest that jargon-related comprehension failure is a persistent, measurable, and modifiable problem spanning specialties within psychology. Implications for training, supervision, and evidence-based communication practice across school and clinical psychology are discussed.
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BibTeX
@misc{hite2026jargon,
title = {{Jargon as a Psychological Construct? A Multidecade Analysis of Communication Failure in Evaluation Reports}},
author = {John Hite},
howpublished = {PsyArXiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.31234/osf.io/3qjxs_v1},
url = {https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/3qjxs_v1/},
note = {CC0},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Jargon as a Psychological Construct? A Multidecade Analysis of Communication Failure in Evaluation Reports
AU - John Hite
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/09
PB - PsyArXiv
DO - 10.31234/osf.io/3qjxs_v1
UR - https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/3qjxs_v1/
AB - For seven decades, studies have asked whether the people who receive psychological evaluation reports understand what they say. Existing research has largely measured reader satisfaction rather than what readers comprehend, recall, or interpret. This narrative synthesis identified six studies, conducted between 1984 and 2025 in school psychology and, most recently, child neuropsychology, in which 253 readers were assigned to a standard-format report and had their comprehension scored directly. Comprehension ranged from 46.6% to 61.1% (weighted mean = 55.2%) and showed no detectable change across four decades. In every study that also scored an accessible version of the same report, readers understood it better, with scores from 60% to 82%. Recent evidence from pediatric neuropsychology shows the same gap: parents rated their understanding of their child's report highly, yet almost half could not state the child's diagnoses without error. Effective formats combined plain-language wording with one or more of domain-based organization, concrete behavioral examples, and elaborated recommendations. These findings suggest that jargon-related comprehension failure is a persistent, measurable, and modifiable problem spanning specialties within psychology. Implications for training, supervision, and evidence-based communication practice across school and clinical psychology are discussed.
ER -