Providing Psychological Assessment Feedback to Children Through Individualized Fables

We present an extensive rationale for why it is important that children receive feedback from a psychological assessment and how feedback can be provided in a developmentally appropriate and therapeutic way. We propose providing such feedback to children through individualized, original fables that are based on the assessment findings and tailored to the emotional capacities of the child and family. Stories and fables have long been utilized in psychotherapy with children but are fairly new in assessment. We review the history of fables and provide a rationale for the benefits of using them as a way to share assessment findings with children. A case study is used to illustrate how to develop a fable from test data, information provided from parents, and one's empathic understanding of a child. We then outline and illustrate a method-using the same case study-for presenting the fable to the child and parents together. Finally, we briefly provide four additional examples of fable construction. We hope that psychologists will be inspired to consider using fables to provide assessment feedback to children and their parents.