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The Minneapolis Preschool Screening Instrument – Revised (MPSI-R) is designed to measure educationally–related developmental skills of children in the age range of three years to five years 11 months. The major areas of functioning measured by the MPSI–R include cognitive, language, literacy, motor and perceptual development. The MPSI–R also includes a social – emotional functioning subtest.
The MPSI-R was re normed in response to the growing diverse populations in Minneapolis Public Schools and other Minnesota school districts implementing screening programs for the identification of children with handicapping conditions. The objective was to keep items from the original instrument that (1) required relatively little time to administer, (2) yielded reliable results, (3) assessed a broad range of functioning, (4) predicted to a child’s performance in school, and (5) provided a non-diagnostic outcome of pass or refer. Additional objectives included: (1) meeting the needs of a growing diverse population and identifying social – emotional difficulties early in order to ensure better outcomes for children before entering school. To meet our objective of serving our current diverse populations throughout the state we translated the MPSI-R into three languages including; Spanish, Hmong and Somali. To meet our second objective we added a 10 point rating scale in the area of social – emotional functioning to identify potential early possible problems in this area. An extensive research program was established to determine whether the MPSI – R fulfilled these objectives. (See Executive Summary link).
The MPSI-R is complied of 64 dichotomously – scored items within 17 subtests for the English version and 59 dichotomously – scored items within 15 subtests for the Non – English versions. Although the instrument has relatively few materials, it is generally enjoyable for children. The MPSI-R can be administered in approximately 15 – 20 minutes. Subtest on the English Version include: Building with Blocks, Copying, Prepositions, Sentence Completion, Repeating Sentences, Colors, Body Part Naming, Matching, Counting and Patterning, Sound Segments, Hopping, Balancing, Rhyming, Letter Name, and Alliteration. Identical subtests can be found on the Non-English version except for Colors and Body Part Naming.
The MPSI- R behavioral observation section of the test is made up of 10 observations. These observations are meant to be rated at the end of the screening on the MPSI-R and relate to the student’s behavior during the test taking session. There are two main components to the overall behavioral Index called the Social Interactivity and Activity Levels domains. These domains indicate a student’s level of social interaction with the administrator and their ability to maintain attention and focused activity during the testing session. Each observation is rated on a three-point rubric ranging from 0-2. The higher a child’s score, the higher level of observed behaviors. The behaviors sampled are behaviors that are thought to inhibit or relate to difficulty in appropriate learning.
CONTACT: Mary.Pickart@mpls.k12.mn.us