The proposed research project aims to standardize and obtain norms for the instrument developed during Phase I. During that phase, a screening battery for the early detection of learning/developmental disabilities risk- status in Puerto Rican and other Hispanic preschool children was developed. The instrument is a Spanish-languages culturally sensitive, colorful, attractive, brief and easy to administer test. The objectives of Phase II include the administration of the screening battery to a sample representative of Puerto Rican and Spanish-speaking Hispanic preschool children in four U.S. locations; the development of adequate norms and criteria for discrimination of at-risk children; the gathering of further evidence of the test reliability and validity, and the preparation of norm tables and test manuals. To accomplish this, the instrument will be administered to a sample of 2,000 children between the ages of 3-0 and 7- 11. Twelve hundred of these will be Puerto Rican children on the island and 800 will be Hispanics in U.S. locations. This project makes important contributions in terms of innovations on psychometric technology. It will provide an adequate instrument with specific norms for Puerto Rican and Hispanic children, filling an important gap. It also integrates the elements of screening, diagnosis and preventive intervention, and creates the infra - structure for the standardization of other tests.
The product of Phase II will be a spanish-language screening battery for the early detection of learning/developmental disabilities risk in Puerto Rican and other Hispanic children. It will be standardized with samples of Puerto Rican and other Hispanic children in PR and several continental U.S. locations. The target market for the battery will be public and private school systems, preschool programs, public and private agencies- institutions and organizations serving young children, and private practitioners, in PR and the continental U.S.
