The methodology and results of a kindergarten screening program which was designed to identify speech and language problems and provide intervention strategies through special and/or regular education programming are described. Eighteen speech therapists completed the Bankson Language Screening Test (BLST) for all kindergarten children in one…

The Regents Competency Program has two basic purposes: (1) to assure the early identification of students who need help in developing reading, writing, and mathematics skills and (2) to assure that students have acquired adequate competency in these skills before receiving a high school diploma. The New York State Preliminary Competency Test in…

A study was conducted at Morton College to determine the effect of students' sex, age, instructor, and placement test scores on grades in Rhetoric I and College Algebra during fall 1983. Study results included the following: (1) 24% of the variance in Rhetoric I grades was accounted for by a student's sex, age, instructor, and placement test…

Recent concern for the quality of education has placed pressure on school administrators to assess and upgrade the competency of their teaching staff. No simple formula exists for measuring teacher competency, however, nor are any new methods guaranteed to improve the quality of instruction. Nevertheless, through a combination of clinical…

Local teachers and other school personnel in Hawaii expressed a need for operational guidelines to use in deciding whether or not to refer students for diagnostic evaluations for specific learning disabilities (SLD). This project was designed to evaluate whether the Windward Rating Scale (WRS), a locally-developed teacher rating scale of student…

The prekindergarten program in the Fort Worth Independent School District (FWISD) is described. The program was developed to meet the needs of disadvantaged four year old children. Students were chosen with respect to age, residence in a Chapter I attendance area, and a low score on the Preschool Screening Evaluation (PSE). Areas of learning…

The CIRCUS Assessment battery has been demonstrated to be very effective when used by teachers in conventional preschool programs, with typical students. This discussion investigates the feasibility of using CIRCUS with educationally handicapped children: (1) for the early identification of educable mentally retarded (EMR) or learning disabled…

Screening refers here to the process of making an initial selection of those who need further diagnostic evaluations. A screening process which effectively selects true learning disability (LD) cases from a population reduces the number of incorrectly selected non-LD children who would be needlessly given costly psychoeducational evaluations.…

Basic skills training in the United States Navy has become increasingly important as the quality of the recruit population has declined and the job demands faced by enlisted personnel have expanded. A study investigated reading comprehension and related variables pertaining to the Navy's recruits during a 12-month period. The primary focus of the…

Arranged alphabetically by title, the bibliography lists 49 tests, designed for use with students ranging from preschoolers to adults, that are measures of proficiency in English as a second language. Each citation provides title, author, copyright date, age level suitability, publisher, and a brief annotation describing the purpose of the test.…

This collection of five case studies reveals how screening programs for preschool and kindergarten children are currently being implemented in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Programs in a variety of communities--large and small, rural, urban and suburban--are portrayed. The screeners interviewed were chosen in part because they also vary in…

The Pediatric Examination of Educational Readiness (PEER) was designed as an integrated health and neurodevelopmental instrument to be administered by pediatricians and nurses in the assessment of preschool children. It may be used to identify potential learning disabled children who need intervention. The neurodevelopmental part of the test…

Intended for local education agency administrators who are establishing programs for children with low incidence handicapping conditions (severe and multiple handicaps), the manual presents information on a range of program topics. Separate chapters are devoted to the following aspects (subtopics in parentheses): identification (presenting…