#24. Systems Series Part 4 - Mastering the Evaluation Process
Episode Shownotes:
How many times have you struggled to write an evaluation report quickly, efficiently, and with little stress? If the answer is anything more than "a few times," today's episode is a must-listen.
Out of all the challenges that come up in coaching sessions with speech pathologists, evaluation reports are one of the biggest sources of time and energy stress.
In today's episode, you will learn the following:
Why we need a system for evaluations
Why you're behind on evaluations
How to create a system for evaluations
Strategies to write evaluation reports faster
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Episode Transcript*:
This is Your Speech Path: Mindful Time Management for the Busy SLP. My name is Theresa Harp and, as a mom and speech pathologist turned productivity coach, I know a thing or two about how hectic life can be. If you're an SLP who's overworked, burnt out and feeling like you're constantly falling short as a therapist and a mom, then this is the podcast for you. I cover time management and mindset strategies so you can learn to love your work and your home life at the same time. Let's dive in.
Hello SLPs, welcome to Episode 24, which is part four of the System Series, and today I've got a really loaded topic. The focus of today's episode is about how to create a system for evaluations and, in the interest of time, I am just going to dive right in.
So, first and foremost, I want to talk about why having a system for evaluations is so crucial. In case you haven't listened to any of the other episodes in the System Series or you're completely new to the podcast, you might be wondering why are we even talking about systems? And, in general, I'd like to recommend systems for any task that you do periodically, routinely, repetitively, frequently, whatever, right, but for evaluations in particular, systems can be incredibly crucial. Out of all of the complaints that I hear and the challenges that I hear fellow SLPs talk about, evaluation reports are probably the most frequent. It is the bane of existence for so many of us. I see this in my teaching, so at the graduate level, students are learning to write evaluation reports, and all the way up through seasoned SLPs. For the majority of SLPs, evaluation reports tend to be the most time consuming and one of the most stressful parts about the job. So if that resonates with you, then this episode is for you.
Why is that? Why do we struggle so much when it comes to evaluation reports? Well, I think number one, they're time consuming. Number two, they take a lot of energy. I'm hearing that SLPs are taking their work home with them. I know that this is happening. I know it's the reason why some of the coaching clients I work with come to me is they're tired of bringing work home with them. I also think that private practice owners are struggling to get their employees to get their reports done on time. So whether you are a private practice owner yourself, or an employee or an independent contractor, you probably have either firsthand experienced the need for a system or you're observing it in those around you. So I want to acknowledge that, depending upon your role like if you are the private practice owner, or you are an employee, or you are a private contractor and depending on your setting whether you're in a school versus a medical setting, et cetera this is going to look different for each of you. So I want you to listen to this episode, but I also want you to take what resonates with you and what lands and leave what doesn't. Don't use this information against yourself.
When you create any system, and in this case, a system for evaluations, know that it doesn't have to be perfect. In fact, there is no such thing as perfect. The system itself doesn't even have to be the final product. I think sometimes, when I'm helping coaching clients work on creating systems in their business or in their clinical work, there's this thought that, “Well, I don't want to get it wrong. I don't know if I'm going to remember everything. I don't know if this system is going to work.” Nobody knows. We just have to try it, and you could waste time trying to find the perfect quote unquote system, or you could just create a system, try it out and modify as needed. I'm a fan of the latter option.
All right. Now I want to also talk a little bit about the importance of identifying the main reasons why you are taking so long to get evaluation reports done, and I want to sort of categorize these reasons into two groups, one being strategy related and the other being mindset related. And let me tell you a little bit about what I mean, so that this makes some more sense. So, if we’re talking about the main reasons why evaluation reports take so long and we're focusing first on strategy related reasons here are some examples: getting distracted, getting interrupted, needing to get faster at scoring tests right, needing to get better at identifying the client's challenges and the client's strengths, needing to get better at how to word things, how to write in a professional tone, needing to get better at identifying the most important information to document and not documenting absolutely everything. Okay, those are some examples of challenges that you might be experiencing that are related to strategy, right, and when I say strategy, I'm saying that because those are things that we can fix by changing the circumstances, changing something external. Okay. So, for example, with getting distracted, we will solve for that—okay, let's talk about some strategies that we can use to help eliminate distractions: putting your phone in another room, putting your phone on silent, putting your phone on airplane mode right, closing out your browser if you're on your laptop, putting screen time limits on your phone and on your laptop. So lots of strategies that we can do that are external, that are going to change the circumstances, right.
On the other hand, there are also reasons that you're behind that are related to mindset, and when I say mindset, I'm talking about that inner voice, that inner monologue, or for some people it's even an inner dialogue. Totally get it, didn't realize, actually, side note that not everyone has an inner monologue running through their head constantly, but apparently not all of you do. I do, but not everyone does. But I want you to think about your thoughts. Sounds very meta, but think about your thoughts. What are your underlying thoughts when you think about writing an evaluation report? Okay, so if I just said to you “evaluation report,” what's your reaction? And then what are the thoughts that go through your brain? Okay, so here are some examples: “This report is going to take forever. I have no idea what to write. I have no idea where to start with this report. I have no idea how to treat this child who's going to be reading this report and what are they going to think about what I write? I don't know how to write this clearly, but without jargon. This case is so complicated. This report has to be perfect.” Okay, these are some common thoughts, ones that I myself have experienced, ones that I've heard clients tell me, and, in my opinion, if you are not addressing those thoughts, then the sustainable change is not going to happen. You're not going to solve sustainably for how to write evaluation reports faster and how to make them less quote unquote painful. Okay, you need to address both. We need to address strategy and we need to address mindset.
Okay, all right. Now I want to talk about how to create your own system for evaluations, and remember what I said at the beginning of this episode is that this will look different for all of you, so please do not take this, as you know, fact and you need to do it exactly this way and a one size fits all approach. These are what I try to do is create very general guidelines so that it will allow anyone who's listening to use this podcast to help create a system that's individualized and works for you. Okay, so just keep that in mind. All right, with systems for evaluation reports, I want you to start at the very beginning, and if you are singing a song from the Sound of Music right now, I apologize, because that's what I have floating through my head, oh my gosh. Okay, so you're going to start at the very beginning and brain dump what information you're either obtaining or receiving prior to the evaluation? Okay, so we're not talking about a system that begins after the evaluation is completed. If that's where you're starting, then you're already behind, and that is one of the reasons why evaluation reports are so painful and difficult. You need to get ahead of it. Okay, and I say this with love and I say this without judgment, and I also say this to my neurodivergent friends and you know, for example, individuals who might have a diagnosis of ADD or ADHD, undiagnosed, diagnosed either way, I hear you, I see you, I feel you, I get it. So I'm, I'm hoping to give you strategies and suggestions that will work, even for those of you that struggle because of or as a result of the challenges you experience having ADD or something similar. Right, I get it. So what I want you to do again is to brain dump the information you're obtaining prior to the evaluation. So, if you are the private practice owner, and let's say you're a solopreneur, you're the only provider, you own the practice and you provide all the intervention and evaluations: so brain dump what information you're getting from families prior to the evaluation and how are you getting it? Okay, and if you are an employee, same thing. What is the information you're getting before the evaluation? How are you getting that information? When are you getting that information? Okay, and if you're the private practice owner but you're not treating, then if you don't have some sort of system like this in your business, here's your, your nudge from the universe to create one for your employees or your contractors. They will thank you, okay, although I suppose if they're contractors, they're probably not going to be involved in what your systems are. But you get the point, okay.
So once you brain dump that information, for some of you you might like you might actually have to brain dump a list. For others, you might already know okay, case history form, medical release, HIPAA form. And if you're very, very new to this, you're going to maybe write down things. Like you know, create a form for this, create a form for that, right. But once you have that brain dump, you're going to determine the easiest, most seamless way to get that information if you don't already have it, if you haven't already determined it right?
So, for example, if you're new to this and you're starting with the case history, all right, so you probably, I'm gonna guess you probably have some sort of case history form that you have your clients or patients fill out. Well, what is the easiest way to actually get that form to them and what's the easiest way to get that form back from them? When are you gonna be doing it? How are you sending it? Via email? Are you sending it in through your electronic medical records portal? Are you doing it in paper and pencil? How is that going to look? Okay, you need to be very clear on that. And it's going to look different, again, if you're an employee versus a contractor, versus a private practice owner, all right.
So once you have that brain dump of information and you're determining for each piece of information, how are you getting it, how are you sending it to them and how are you getting it back? Okay, then I would encourage you, for step number two, to create a checklist with the evaluation components. So, probably at this point, like each step is meant to build on the next. So, after you have your brain dump and you're figuring out how to give that information to your client or potential client and how to get that information back, you then want to have some sort of a checklist that documents each evaluation component, so that might be each form that the family has to fill out. It's going to be different for every person who's listening, but you want to have that checklist and you want to make sure that that is somewhere very visible for you as the evaluator. Okay, so that you've got your finger on the pulse, so to speak, of what information needs to be collected. And did you collect it yet? Okay, so you've got that checklist and really that's primarily for you. I should share that's really for you as the SLP, so that you know that you have everything that you need and you're not scrambling to get information that you forgot to obtain during the evaluation. Because, let's face it, during the evaluation itself it can be quite hectic, right? There's a lot of moving parts. So if you've already squared away these pieces in advance, there's less of that cognitive load on you during the evaluation itself.
Then what I would want you to do is to consider writing or typing your evaluation process as if you needed to train an employee, okay. So imagine that, even if you don't have an employee now and you don't think you ever will have one, imagine if you did. What would your evaluation process be? And so, hopefully, when you're getting to this point of creating your system, the information from your brain dump and from your checklist will be a nice segue right into this step of typing out your evaluation process. What is the step-by-step process? And I want you, I would really encourage you, to include timeframes or deadlines. You know this in your head, right? A lot of you might be listening to this thinking, “Well, I know all this, Theresa, like this is just what I do. I don't need a checklist, I don't need an evaluation process, you know, outlined step-by-step, because I know it all, I do it all. It's in my head,” and I would encourage you to consider the possibility that by documenting this and then seeing it in writing, you're able to get going in the process. You're able to get started and begin the evaluation process with a bit of momentum, because your brain just seeing that information right there in writing serves as a trigger for your brain to start the process right. It's so much easier to begin a task when you have something there that you can see to get you going. And really I'm speaking to my fellow ADD/ADHDers out there who are listening right, we know this. But with task, with ADD/ADHD, task initiation is a big challenge, and I personally have found that it's easier for me to initiate a task when I have something visual, something there to get me started. And so that is the value, in my opinion, of an evaluation process that's typed up or outlined for me, okay.
And then step four in your system is to complete as much information ahead of time. Okay. So before the evaluation even starts, I like to do this personally and I like to encourage my clients, my coaching clients, to do this: fill out the background information in the report, fill out the description of the test tools that you're using, put in your headings and your formatting for the report itself. Because, again, like I said with the previous step, just having that information and writing ahead of time gives you that momentum, it gives you that starting point. Your brain is not starting from scratch, it already has some information to get it going. So if you can get that information in ahead of time, think of how much more efficient and productive you could be within the evaluation itself, because you freed up time and you freed up mental bandwidth to conduct the evaluation, because it's not being spent on things like this, things that you could do ahead of time? And I also want to acknowledge that some of you might be listening and saying well, we use our EMR for our evaluation reports or we have a specific template that's given to us that we have to follow. Okay, well, can you go in there ahead of time and put that information in? Could you take that formatting? If you can't go into the EMR ahead of time and plug in that info, then can you recreate it simply on a Word doc or a Google doc or something on your computer. So then you're typing it into your computer and then copying and pasting it into the EMR. Every platform is different and so, again, reminder, not a one size fits all. But I just want to encourage you to think outside the box here. Don't let one little barrier prevent you from finding a way to make this work for you.
Okay, all right. The next thing I want to talk about because now that we have essentially a simple system for your evaluations, right, I want to talk about strategies, because I know so many of you that are listening are like yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, but just tell me, like, just give me the secrets, just give me the answers. Okay, I hear you, I get it. Take what I say with a grain of salt. These are some, I think, some solid strategies to support you, but please, please, don't tune me out when I say that this is as much about strategizing as it is about mindset. I really want that to be your takeaway from today's episode. Okay, but I am going to give you the strategies. I'm going to give you a handful of strategies to support you. All right, the first strategy I want to offer is templates. So most of you probably have some sort of a template for your evaluation report. If you don't, please do this now. You can go and Teachers Pay Teachers and you can buy these. You can even find them for free. If you're finding them for free online, of course, make sure that they are accurate and up to date, and you know you don't just want to copy paste and take it and run right. That is not what I'm saying. I want to be very, very clear here. But figure out how to get that template in the easiest, quickest way possible. Okay, and I would save it in my Word Doc as a template so that you have that there readily available. You're not like copying and pasting one report into another. Actually, this is a funny little story, just a side note. I was working with a coaching client who she what she used to do was she would take the previous report or she would if she did an evaluation, she would then go into her, you know, documents and to her files and find an assessment report for another child that was similar to the child she was evaluating and she would use that report as a framework for the new report, for the, for the new evaluation right, and then she would just go into that old report. She would change, of course, all the information, the identifying information, but she would use that as the shell and what she found on on paper, or you know, just in theory that sounds great. Potentially for some of you you might be thinking, “Oh yeah, that's, I could do that.”
But what she found was, when she was doing that, she was getting thrown off by all of the information that was in the report already, because it was so detailed that it was difficult for her brain to separate out what was the old child, you know, the, the, the template or the framework, and then what was the new child. And it was hard. It was like trying to put a square peg in a round hole. That's kind of what it was like. So then she switched it to just having templates that had descriptions and overviews of the different assessments and she would go in and she would use those to create her template. She would use those to create her starting point for any new evaluations she was completing. That made all the difference to her. She said it was a game changer.
Now, this does not mean that that's what all of you should do. If you're listening, I share that number one because it might be helpful for some of you, but number two, I also share that because it illustrates the point that yours…first…for a lot of this, you're not going to know what will work best until you try it. So instead of trying to get it right the first time, just take your best guess of what you want your system to be, of what you, what strategies you think are going to be the most helpful for you. Start there, try it and then modify as needed. Okay, thank you.
Now back to these templates. I think it's important for you to remember you can do this in two ways, and I really encourage you to do this both ways. Number one, an overall description of the assessment tool, and I like to do this for all of the assessments that I give. Most frequently. I'm not currently practicing, I'm not currently evaluating, but when I was, I had descriptions of the assessment tools readily available. So, for example, the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals, Fifth Edition, is a “comprehensive, receptive and expressive language assessment used to diagnose a language disorder in children ages five through 21.” Okay, that's a basic description. And then I had templates or descriptions of each subtest, and within that I would include examples as well. So here let me tell you what I mean: “The Sentence Comprehension subtest of the CELF-5 is used to evaluate understanding of grammar at the spoken sentence level. The student is presented with four pictures and asked to choose the one that correctly matches the sentence meaning. For example, the examiner shows the child a picture of ABCD, provides the sentence XYZ and waits for the child to choose the photo that corresponds to the sentence provided.” Okay, so something like that for each subtest. Then there you go you've got your starting point, you've got your general information and you're ready to go, you're ready to fill in strengths and challenges, results, all of that. So that's the first strategy: templates.
Also, you can use something like quick phrases or keywords or shortcuts that will help you, basically, auto fill. So, whether you do this in your EMR, your Electronic Medical Records platform, or you do this on your computer. I know there's different ways to do it depending upon the platform, but you can save yourself some time by programming in keywords. So instead of having to type, for example, “date of birth",” you can just put in “DOB” and then it will automatically get filled as date of birth. Okay, that's like a simple, silly example. But think about what words or phrases or headings and things that you would use or that you do use frequently in your evaluation writing and program those in as keywords or shortcuts so that you only have to type a couple of letters instead of having to type out whole words or phrases.
Okay, another strategy to support you with evaluation reports is to use check boxes whenever possible. So if you're able to create a format of a report where you can just check the box for this, this, this, this, this and then fill in supporting details, that can help save you time. So think about what topics or what content of your evaluation reports are good candidates for something like that and how you would start doing that.
To help save you time, you can also have a goal bank, so a bank of goals that are pre-written, that you've got ready at your fingertips, that you're not necessarily just going to copy and paste, but that you can use as starting points for creating goals that are, of course, appropriate to the individual that you are evaluating. So if you have that sample or that bank of goals to choose from, it can help give you some ideas of targets based on the client's needs and what comes up on the evaluation. It can start your, it can save you time, it can help you start writing those goals out because, again, like with some of the earlier strategies I talked about, you're starting with something. You've got those sample goals there to help eliminate some of that writer's block or that blank page syndrome that we've experienced when we're trying to start writing and we don't see anything there on the page.
Another strategy to consider is outsourcing. So I'm not going to tell you to have other people write your report. Obviously, that's not what I mean. But what about outsourcing the scoring? Is this something that you are willing and able to do? I'm blanking on the names of different tools that are out there. I know there's one in particular where all of the evaluation, like the assessment tools and assessments are available virtually. Gosh, I'm sorry I'm not able to think of the name off the top of my head, but if I think of it I will put it in the show notes. But similar, there's different resources that you can use for scoring the test. If that's something that takes a while or something that you don't particularly enjoy, consider that as an option. Maybe that's something that if you have an intern or an extern or an SLPA who can help you get the scoring done and get it done quickly. '
And then I want to offer this strategy, and I'm calling it a strategy. It's just sort of food for thought really, but I would be remiss if I went through and did this entire episode and did not offer this thought for you. So at the beginning or earlier on in today's episode, I talked about strategy versus mindset and the importance of addressing both. Right, and I want to circle back to that before we wrap up, because the amount of time and energy that you are wasting trying to avoid writing the report or stressing about writing the report far exceeds the amount of time and energy that it actually takes to write the report. I have found this to be true not just for evaluation reports, but pretty much for anything in my life that I'm overthinking or stressing about or losing sleep over. The majority of the instances where that happens, I have realized that the amount of time and energy that I spend thinking about doing the task or stressing about how the task or the event is gonna go far exceeds the amount of time and energy that I spend to actually do the thing. So if you're tired of stressing about evaluation reports, if you're tired of thinking about all the evaluation reports that you have to do, then this is your sign to come up with a system like what we've talked about today to help you get it done faster and simpler, okay, because any amount of time that you spend on an evaluation report means less time that you have to spend on the other tasks that you need to do. So, in the interest of using our time as intentionally and as wisely as possible, I would encourage you to write your evaluation reports in as simple of a way as possible.
Okay, and come and join the Facebook group, okay. The SLP Support Group on Facebook is a free resource that's available to you, where you can get connection and support from other SLPs who are working on some of these very same things in their own businesses or in their own places of employment. All right, that's it for today's episode on evaluations, the fourth episode of this system series. I will be back next week for one final episode on systems as an SLP, and then I'm going to have some really exciting episodes coming up in the future that are guest interviews. So I'm gonna have some expert guests come on the show and give you some resources and insights and strategies about time management from their perspective, and you will not wanna miss those. So make sure you subscribe to this show. All right, hope this was helpful and I will talk with you all next week.
*Please note that this transcript was generated by AI and may contain errors.