Purpose: The aim of this study was to examine the concurrent validity of the Fluharty Preschool Speech and Language Screening Test--Second Edition (Fluharty-2; Fluharty, 2001) for mass screenings of language at age 3 years. Method: Participants were sixty-two 3-year-old children, 31 who had failed and 31 who had passed the Fluharty-2. Performance…

Tiered response models encourage a proactive approach to identification of social-emotional needs and intervention. However, schools experience barriers to adopting and implementing such models that use data to allocate interventions. The current study examines the utility of a universal social-emotional learning (SEL) screening system embedded in…

As patient-centered education efforts increase, assessing health literacy (HL) becomes more salient. The verbal Brief Health Literacy Screen (BHLS) may have clinical and feasibility advantages over written tools, including the Rapid Estimate of Adult Literacy in Medicine--Revised (REALM-R) and Short Test of Functional Health Literacy in Adults…

The scoring scheme for the functional movement screen implicitly assumes that the factor structure is consistent, stable, and congruent across different populations. To determine if this is the case, we compared principal components analyses of three samples: a healthy, general population (n = 100), a group of varsity athletes (n = 101), and a…

Developmental dyslexia is a lifelong impairment affecting 5% to 10% of the population. In French-speaking countries, although a number of standardized tests for dyslexia in children are available, tools suitable to screen for dyslexia in adults are lacking. In this study, we administered the "Alouette" reading test to a normative sample…

Background: Substantial development in social communication skills occurs in the first two years of life. Growth should be evident in sharing emotion and eye gaze; rate of communication, communicating for a variety of functions; using gestures, sounds and words; understanding language, and using functional and pretend actions with objects in play.…

The Social Skills Improvement System (SSIS; Gresham & Elliott, 2008) is a multiple stage, broadband system for assessing and intervening with children in preschool through 12th grade originally normed in the USA. Two of the assessment components of this system were analysed: (a) the Performance Screening Guides (PSGs); and (b) the Rating…

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization promoted the creation of a model instrument for individual assessment of students' foundational writing skills in the Spanish language that was based on a literature review and existing writing tools and assessments. The purpose of the "Early Grade Writing Assessment"…

There is a need for brief screening instruments for autistic spectrum disorders (ASD) that can be used by frontline healthcare professionals to aid in the decision as to whether an individual should be referred for a full diagnostic assessment. In this study we evaluated the ability of a short form of the autism spectrum quotient (AQ)…

Tools to identify toddlers with autism in clinical settings have been recently developed. This study evaluated the sensitivity and specificity of the Child Behavior Check List 1 1/2-5 (CBCL 1 1/2-5) in the detection of toddlers subsequently diagnosed with an Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), ages 18-36 months. The CBCL of 47 children with ASD were…

Despite high rates of clinically elevated anxiety difficulties in children and adolescents with autism spectrum disorders (ASDs), very few studies have systematically examined the usefulness of commonly used caregiver report anxiety screening tools with this population. This study investigated the use of the Spence Children's Anxiety…

Objective behavioral assessment of autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in early childhood is essential for guiding appropriate treatment and intervention. In contrast to Western societies, validated measures of ASD are very limited in different Chinese contexts. The present study attempted to examine the construct validity of the Chinese version of…

We report findings of a validation study comparing two screening tools: the Student Risk Screening Scale-Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE, an adapted version of the Student Risk Screening Scale) and the Social Skills Improvement System-Performance Screening Guide (SSiS-PSG). Participants included 458 kindergarten through fifth-grade…

The goals of our study were to (a) compare agreement between autism spectrum disorder diagnosis and outcome of the Modified Checklist for Autism in Toddlers and Parents Evaluation of Developmental Status in a sample of toddlers and (b) examine specific concerns noted for toddlers who screened negative on the Modified Checklist for Autism in…

With the recent influx of Latinos into the United States, it is essential to understand how their backgrounds and cultures will affect the way they view their children's emotional, social, and educational development. Researchers continue to evaluate the psychometrics of various screening instruments in order to ensure a reliable and valid…