Emergent literacy skills are predictive of children's early reading success, and literacy achievement in early schooling declines more rapidly for children who are below-average readers. It is therefore important for teachers to identify accurately children at risk for later reading difficulty so children can be exposed to effective emergent…

Response to intervention (RTI) holds great promise for the early identification and prevention of reading disabilities. The success of RTI rests in part on the accuracy of universal screening tools used within this framework. Despite advancements, screening instruments designed to identify children at risk for reading disabilities continue to have…

Comparison of scores on the Kaufman Assessment Battery for Children and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised of 67 students (ages 6-12) referred for possible learning disabilities found strong relationships among all the global standard scores on both instruments with different score patterns for those with severe disabilities.…

The validity of using an analysis of patterns of performance on the Meeting Street School Screening test versus using the composite cutoff score for identification of learning disabilities was analyzed for 1,377 first graders. Use of subtest scatter predicted later learning disability placements less accurately than chance. (Author/DB)

The article by Speece (in this issue) underscores the disappointing accuracy results of early screening for reading difficulties and argues that development conceptualized as rate of learning matters. We respond by emphasizing three points. First, the purpose of early screening could be identifying students not at risk so that instructional…

Attention to growth may net more accurate screening results than have been apparent in the long history of early identification research. Instead of relying solely on measures administered at one time point, including a measure of children's growth or responsiveness may add an important dimension to the screening equation and provide a clearer…

An 18-item "Shortened Visuospatial Questionnaire" (SVS) was validated twice, first by verifying that children (ages 8-13) identified with the SVS questionnaire as having visuospatial learning disability (VSLD) (n=54) actually showed visuospatial deficits on psychometric evaluation, and second, by rating with the SVS a clinically identified…

Scores on the Holbrook Screening Battery, administered at age four, correctly predicted 89 percent of good readers and 75 percent of poor readers in a sample of 116 eighth graders. Characteristics differentiating good and poor readers included birth history, family history of learning disability, speech delay, and socioeconomic status. (Author/DB)

The study assessed the utility of different factor structures of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children-Revised in differentiating Israeli male students (ages 6-16) with learning disability from children with emotional disturbance. Based on several comparisons the results indicated that only the modified A.S. Kaufman's factor structure…