Screening for language problems in minority preschool children is not straight-forward because of these children's diverse cultural, economic, and linguistic backgrounds. Over 68% of the 540 preschool English-speaking children in the Fort Worth Head Start program obtained scores at least one standard deviation below the mean on the Hannah-Gardner Test of Verbal and Nonverbal Language Functioning. This high failure rate suggested that a local adaptation was needed for language screening. The procedures used to calculate local norms and other issues involved in screening minority population are discussed.

This study reported differences in agreement among four experienced listeners who analyzed the articulation skills of 97 four- and five-year-old children. Mean agreement percentages based on the identification of only misarticulated sounds were contrasted with mean percentages of agreement for decisions made on both correct and incorrect articulations of each sound for the entire population. In addition, the weighted average of the modal category of agreement for the specification of error type for misarticulated responses was determined for each sound tested over all subjects. Differences in agreement for evaluations of all responses, for error responses only, and for specification of error types were calculated and reported by place and manner of articulation, voicing characteristics, and syllabic function. Place and manner of articulation revealed differences of agreement, whereas voicing and syllabic function contributed little to agreement or disagreement.

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