Psychological screening in the course of the health control of four-year-old children

The health control of four-year-old Swedish children will include an examination of possible psychologtcal abnormalities and defects. The methods which have been worked out for this purpose by a committee of the Social Council include two main components. A nurse will carry out an interview with the child's caretaker and then evaluate the child's behavior. In addition, a physician will make an attempt to evaluate the child's development. The “risk children” will then be selected for further psychological investigation.

An attempt has been made to test the efficiency of the screening methods mentioned. The evaluations by the child care centers have been compared to more comprehensive clinical-psychological investigations and the results show good agreement between the two teams.

The Investigation has been carried out at PBU, Stockholm (Chief physician Hans Curman, psychologist Lillian Gottfarb).