LAUSR

As psychologists rely more on technology while navigating the digital world, we must adapt existing assessment tools. In response to this need, a process was designed for conducting remote administration of the Feifer Assessment of Reading Screening Form (FAR Screening Form; Feifer, 2015), which was designed to identify children “at risk” for developmental dyslexia. Our current study evaluates the equivalence between remote, online administration and in-person administration of the FAR Screening Form. This is a paired case control study in which 70 participants were administered the FAR Screening Form in an online, remote format, following a specific procedure to retain the validity of scores. These individuals were matched based on age, sex, education, and race with participants from the standardization sample of the FAR Screening Form. Independent-samples t-tests were conducted, and determined no significant effect of administration format for scores on the Phonemic Awareness (PA) and Semantic Concepts (SC) subtests, as well as the overall FAR Screening Index. Rapid Automatic Naming (RAN), a speeded subtest, showed a significant effect for administration format. Due to this effect, a new FAR Remote Screening Index (SRI) was created that includes only the PA and SC subtests. The SRI has demonstrated reliability and validity consistent with the FAR Screening Index. The present study suggests that remote and in-person administrations of the PA and SC subtests of the FAR Screening Form are generally equivalent. During remote administration, it’s not recommended to use the RAN subtest; the SRI should be used to derive the screening index score.