Validity of an Observation Screening Instrument in a Multicultural Population

Abstract

Due to the increase of linguistically and culturally diverse young children in our society, accurate screening for communication disorders is becoming increasingly difficult. The Davis Observation Checklist for Texas (DOCT) is an observational teacher checklist used to screen preschool children for communication disorders in Head Start programs in Texas. The goals of this study were to assess the sensitivity and specificity of the DOCT and to evaluate the concurrent validity of the DOCT with a multicultural population. Fifty-nine English-speaking children (20 Mexican American, 19 African American, 20 Anglo) were evaluated using an assessment battery that included the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities (1970), the Goldman-Fristoe Test of Articulation-Revised (1986), and an informal checklist to assess voice and fluency. Concurrent validity was evaluated by obtaining the percent agreement between the outcome of the assessment battery (administered by speech pathologists and graduate clinicians) and the DOCT (administered by Head Start teachers). Results of this study show the DOCT demonstrates adequate sensitivity (80%) and specificity (98%) values and agrees well with the criterion measure in identifying children with communication disorders in the 3 populations studied.