Validity of the DIAL-R for Identifying Children with Special Education Needs and Predicting Early Reading Achievement

The validity of the DIAL-R for identifying special-needs children and predicting early achievement was investigated for 463 prekindergarten screening program participants. The DIAL-R was found to be useful for selecting children in need of follow-up services. A decision-to-refer rule based on one low DIAL-R area score was most satisfactory in identifying special-needs children (sensitivity = .57; specificity = .95). All children with more disabling educational handicaps and one-half of those with less severe impairments were identified. Findings supported the use of locally validated decision-to-refer rules and multiple cut-off scores (OK, monitor, refer). The correlation between DIAL-R and kindergarten Clymer-Barrett Readiness Test scores was r = .64 (p <.01); the correlation of the DIAL-R with first-grade Stanford Reading Test scores was .54 (p <.01). Consistent with findings for other screening instruments, results suggested that the DIAL-R has limited validity for predicting the achievement of individual children beyond kindergarten.