Comparing Universal Screening and Teacher Nomination for Identifying Behavioral Risk

• In Event: 26.040 - Research, Evaluation, Assessment, and Accountability in Schools: Presenting the Work of Graduate Student Scholars

Abstract

The Response to Intervention (RtI) framework has been proposed for the preschool environment to identify and assist children at-risk for, or exhibiting, social-emotional problems. Within the RtI framework, universal screening tools may be recommended as a systematic approach to identify preschoolers at-risk. However, universal screening is often in contrast to another procedure commonly used for risk identification, that is, teacher nomination of children thought to be at-risk. This study compared these two early identification methods in the preschool environment by comparing the numbers of children identified as at-risk. Preliminary results indicated that universal screening was a strong predictor of kindergarten readiness level and was more likely to identify children with problems than teacher nomination.

Authors

• Jin Liu, University of South Carolina - Columbia

• Fred Greer, University of South Carolina

• Christine DiStefano, University of South Carolina