A New Test for Assessing Preschool Motor Development: DIAL-3

Abstract

Recent research and legislation in the United States regarding assessment of preschool children have guided the development of the latest version of the Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning, DIAL-3. This paper briefly describes the history of this test’s previous two versions (DIAL, 1975 and DIAL-R, 1983, 1990) followed by a description of the research and development of the motor items in DIAL-3. Then DIAL-3 is evaluated, using the key features for selecting an appropriate preschool gross motor assessment instrument (Zittel, 1994). DIAL-3 meets all of the common criteria for a technically adequate screening test.