Every year your school district offers a “Developmental Screening Day” as part of their Child Find, or early intervention program. In partnership with the Gallatin-Madison Special Education Cooperative and the Region IV Hearing Conservation Program, we are offering them again this Fall.

For children 3yrs to 5yrs of age, not yet in Kindergarten, the screening tool is called the “Developmental Indicators for the Assessment of Learning-Revised, (DIAL-R). For the DIAL-R, children are asked to separate from their parent(s) and engage in game-format activities that are set up in small centers. Areas of screening on the DIAL-R include:

Gross motor: using large groups of muscles to perform physical activities, such as skipping, jumping and throwing.

Fine motor: using hands and fingers to perform activities such as drawing and writing.

Hearing: Screening through audiometry, tympanogram, with potential medical referral or follow up with the Hearing Conservation Region IV audiologist.

Language/Communication: speech sound development (i.e. articulation), vocabulary understanding and use, language reasoning and early phonetic skills.

Developmental Concepts: Understanding terms such as more/less; sorting and categorizing, colors and other pre-academic knowledge.

Social: Following directions and engaging with others

At the end of the DIAL-R screening you’ll receive a summary of development that is either on track compared to peers of the same age, or if the team needs to conduct a follow-up screening. At the follow-up, you’ll receive more information about development and how any lagging skills can be addressed. From start to finish, the screening process takes approximately 45-minutes.

Our Partner, Family Outreach will be screening infants and toddlers, birth to three years of age. Parents attend this screening with the little one and it can take approximately 45-minutes.

Please call Linda Nell at 406-995-4281 ext. 502 or email LNell@bssd72.org to set up your appointment on September26, 2023.

Thank you!

Big Sky School District