Screening for speech and language impairment: a follow-up of true negatives and false positives

It is important to ascertain the validity of screening and case-finding procedures in terms of long-term outcome, particularly if they constitute the primary mode of accessing services. This study is a follow-up of a group of True Negatives and False Positives from the 'original' study (Laing et al. 2000), which investigated the concurrent validity of a parent-led method and a formal screening method. Nine (29.03%) of the 31 children who were re-assessed fell below the cut-off point for referral and were identified as cases. In particular, as many as eight (57.14%) of the 14 false positives were referred.