The standard
It scores whether a piece of medical material is built to remove what amplifies a patient’s anxiety, so the message can get through.
Five dimensions
Each dimension has five checks. The five end at Emotional Safety, because the other four are routes to it.
Does the material manage the threat, or add to it?
→Is it ordered the way a patient lives the problem, or the way a clinician thinks about it?
→Too much at once, or broken so small it stops meaning anything?
→When it ends, does the person know exactly what to do next?
→Where the four lead
Is the fear said out loud, put in proportion, and answered?
Eight conditions
They ask whether the material still works for someone who doesn't share the writer's language, schooling or reasons to trust a hospital.
The familiar tests
AWCL scores reading level and the familiar checklists too — right in the same report. The two never get blended into one number.
Readability, a PEMAT-style check, and a CDC Clear Communication Index–style check — all scored on the same piece, in the same report as AWCL.
None of them ask what state the reader is in. AWCL does — which is how a document can pass every checklist and still be caught failing a frightened person.
What you get back
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