Mass Screenings

The school system where I work is in Day 2 of our county-wide Kindergarten screenings.  When I came to this county 9 years ago, we screened all Kindergarten and First Grade students.  We used a formal screener, Speech-Ease Screening Inventory.    Up until this year, the students would come to the school in their zone the April before they started school, and have their readiness skills, vision & hearing, and speech & language screened.  The SLPs (we have 12 for 15 elementary schools, 4 middle schools, and 2 high schools) would team up and screen the students.  It made for a nice break from therapy right after TCAPs, as we closed out the school year.
For those students who were identified as possibly requiring further evaluation, we would then individually rescreen our own schools at the beginning of the school year.  If there were language difficulties, we would wait and rescreen those students after Fall Break.  This was to give the children time to get used to the school routine.
That was then, this is now.  This year, the Kindergarten teachers "Briganced" the students during the first week of school, when the students were on a "staggered" schedule.  For the first 2 weeks of school, the Kindergarten students came 2 days/week, and only until 12:30.  The third week, reality hits them!  They come 5 days, and stay all day.  The teachers assess their readiness skills during those first 2 weeks, when they don't have all of the students there at one time.
The SLPs are again teaming up to complete the screenings, but now we only screen Kindergarten students.  We found that we were taking up a lot of time screening all of the First Graders, since the majority of them passed the initial screening in Kindergarten.  We use the PLS-4 Screening using the articulation stimuli from the previous screening.
Here is how I keep up with my screening results:
Following the completion of the screenings, I write in each child's name on this form:
(Apparently this is an older form; I've made a column for vision/hearing that I now use!)
For the students who had difficulties, I will look at their birthdate, the errors, and determine if I want to refer for an evaluation or rescreen.  If I decide to rescreen, I decide when I want to rescreen.  This will depend on their birthdate.  If I decide to rescreen later that year, I put the information on this form:
(Again, this is an older form that I used; I've added a column for their errors.)
I keep this form in my therapy notebook so I'll see it and remember to screen at the beginning of the month.
If I decide to wait until the next year, I transfer their information onto this form:
I put this form into a file on my computer for the next year.  I've also learned the hard way to make sure to back up all of my files onto a thumb drive before I leave for the summer.  Last year, I got back to school to find that all of my files had been wiped out.  I'm not sure if it was because I switched schools, or if there was an update that wiped them out.
And, that's my Mass Screenings in a nutshell.  If there are any forms you'd like, let me know and I'll be happy to email an updated copy to you.  I can't take credit for most of them; these are forms we used when I worked in South Carolina!
How does this compare to your screenings?

2 comments:

  1. I would love a copy of your updated forms! My work email is swalsh@stanhopeschools.org.. Thank you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. hye. would love to receive your shared form.. intanbudakkedah@yahoo.com

    ReplyDelete

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