The standard

Anxiety-Weighted Cognitive Load

An accessibility instrument. It scores whether a piece of medical material is built for the state the person holding it is in.

Four ways material is built, and the one thing they produce.

Each dimension has five checks. The five end at Emotional Safety, because the other four are routes to it.

Anxiety Load

Does the material manage the threat, or add to it?

Comprehension Sequencing

Is it ordered the way a patient lives the problem, or the way a clinician thinks about it?

Cognitive Chunking

Too much at once, or broken so small it stops meaning anything?

Action Clarity

When it ends, does the person know exactly what to do next?

Where the four lead

Emotional Safety

Is the fear said out loud, put in proportion, and answered?

Eight more checks, for a reader unlike the writer.

They ask whether the material still works for someone who doesn't share the writer's language, schooling or reasons to trust a hospital.

Access

  • Is it in plain language, with no jargon it doesn’t show?
  • Is it in the easiest form to take in?
  • Does it show the thing to do, or only describe it?

Standing

  • Does it earn trust by being open, or assume it?
  • Does it avoid framing risk by race, which costs trust?
  • Does it invite a reply, or only lecture?

Frame

  • Does it tell a story, or only instruct?
  • Does it speak to the family and community, not just the individual?

Kept separate, for a reason.

Reading level and the familiar checklists are still scored, and reported on their own.

None of them takes the state of the person holding the material into account. AWCL does.

Keeping the scores apart shows the material that passes every checklist and still fails a frightened person.

The method reorders. It doesn't edit.

What changes is what comes first, how much arrives at once, and whether the fear is named before the instructions start.

The report shows the score for each dimension, and every check behind it, for every piece you send.

What we found

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Dedicated to David, Rayna, and Robert.