VALIDITY OF AN OBSERVATION SCREENING INSTRUMENT IN A MULTICULTURAL POPULATION

Due to the increase of linguistically and culturally diverse young chi ldren in our society, accurate screening for communication disorders i s becoming increasingly difficult. The Davis Observation Checklist for Texas (DOCT) is an observational teacher checklist used to screen pre school children for communication disorders in Head Start programs in Texas. The goals of this study were to assess the sensitivity and spec ificity of the DOCT and to evaluate the concurrent validity of the DOC T with a multicultural population. Fifty-nine English-speaking childre n (20 Mexican American, 19 African American, 20 Angle) were evaluated using an assessment battery that included the McCarthy Scales of Child ren's Abilities (1970), the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation-Revis ed (1986), and an informal checklist to assess voice and fluency. Conc urrent validity was evaluated by obtaining the percent agreement betwe en the outcome of the assessment battery (administered by speech patho logists and graduate clinicians) and the DOCT (administered by Head St art teachers). Results of this study show the DOCT demonstrates adequa te sensitivity (80%) and specificity (98%) values and agrees well with the criterion measure in identifying children with communication diso rders in the 3 populations studied.