It is not a good idea to administer additional secondary screens to these high and low risk groups. If a clinician is able to discover whether a parent is concerned or not, referral or non-referral decisions can be made immediately in approximately 80 per cent of the cases, with additional screening reserved for the remaining 20 per cent. Nevertheless, eliciting parents' concerns is tricky in itself. For this reason, one tool, described below, uses carefully standardized and validated questions. Waiting until a problem is observable .
Clinicians often use screening tools only after they've noticed a problem.
If the problem is obvious, referring may be the best response. Screening such children may compound rather than reduce the error in both clinical judgment and screening tools. Ignoring screening results . Many times, screening test results are not taken seriously and children who fail are not referred but rather viewed with a wait and see attitude. Good screens are right 70 to 80 per cent of the time.