Preschool Speech and Language Screening

Fifty-one preschool speech-language screening tests were reviewed with regard to criteria crucial to screening test selection: professional time required, comprehensiveness, norms, and reliability/validity. A rationale was given for specific guidelines for each criterion. Twenty-five of the tests met the criterion of requiring 10 minutes or less. Nine of these met the criteria for brevity and comprehensiveness. Only six of the standardized tests reported any data that could be used to calculate clinical indices required to evaluate screening test validity. Of these six, only two provided the kind of data that would permit calculation of all predictive indices.