DIAL-R (Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Revised), a developmental test for children 2 to 6 years old, was modified minimally and translated for use in Taiwan. After it was normed on a stratified sample of 322 children in Taipei, analyses of internal consistency, construct validity, test-retest reliability, and concurrent validity all indicated that the test meets the standards of a technically adequate screening test for that culture, giving it criterion-referenced meaning. In addition, some tentative cross-cultural comparisons of young children's motoric, conceptual, and language development can be drawn. Whereras the normative data suggest that most skills develop at comparable ages in the two cultures, there are some notable exceptions, some of which develop earlier in American children, others of which develop earlier in Chinese children. These differences are discussed in context with environmental and cultural components, giving the test construct-referenced meaning.

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.

The establishment of predictive validity and the calculation of sensitivity and specificity were described for the DIAL-R. These results were compared with the concurrent and predictive validity figures from other screening tests. Suggestions for avoiding common problems include obtaining optimal cut-off scores by using the contrasting group method or by developing local norms and calculating sensitivity and specificity on one's own population and adjusting the cut-off points until the “best fit” is obtained.

A widely used preschool screening test, DIAL (Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning) was revised and restandardized on a national sample of 2,447 children. The age range was extended to include four chronological years (2-0 to 6-0) and the format was modified by combining gross motor and fine motor skills into one Motor area, The rationale for the test construction and test standardization are discussed and the establishment of norms in the form of cut-off points are described. This new test, DIAL-R, appears to accurately identify a full range of performance, potential giftedness as well as potential problems. However, it is considered by the authors as merely a definitive first step in identifying young children at either end of the continuum of readiness skills who may be in need of additional services.