Ever wish you could copy the beautiful graphs generated by the BASC, Vineland, or ABAS computer scoring applications and insert them into your reports?

I’m going to show you how in 5 easy steps. The process will take you about a minute and will save you from having to create your own tables.

Why You Should Do This:

Computer scoring applications generate really informative reports with nifty graphs of the student’s scores. These graphs could be an effective way of communicating the assessment results.

Here’s the problem: It’s not appropriate to give a parent the full computer generated report. It includes way more information than is necessary and is confusing to non-clinicians.

So what do we usually end up doing?

We create a lengthy table and transfer the T-scores and percentiles from the computer generated report into our own. These tables are tedious, time-consuming, and aren’t very parent friendly.

Fortunately, there’s a better and less time-consuming way to display the results.

How to Insert Graphs into Your Reports

For this tutorial I will be using a sample BASC-3 report, but these steps will work with any computer scored assessment that you can save as a PDF.

You can watch the video tutorial above or follow the steps below.

Step 1: Save Report as PDF and Open in Adobe Reader

Each computer scoring application has a different way of doing this. Most applications will have an option that says “Save”, “Save As”, or “Export”.

You must use a desktop application, like Adobe Reader to open the report. You cannot copy the graphs from a PDF reader built into a web browser.

Step 2: Maximize the Window

This process will create an image file of the graph. Maximizing the Adoble Reader window will create a higher resolution copy of the graph.

Step 3: Use the Snapshot Tool

From the top menu in Adobe Reader go to Edit –> Take a Snapshot.

Step 4: Highlight the Graph

Click and drag over the graph area to highlight the entire graph and let go of the mouse button. Adobe Reader will tell you that the area was copied.

I like to start at the lower left corner and highlight as close to the graph elements as possible to minimize the white space and make the graph image as large as possible.

Step 5: Copy into Your Report

Go into your word processor where you are writing your report. Right click and paste into your desired location.

And You’re Done!

Using these steps will make your evaluation reports friendlier to parents and non-clinicians. It will also save you from inputting all those T-scores into a table!

Do you use another way to graphically display assessment results in your reports? We’d love to hear about it! Leave a comment.

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