(a) The disabilities coordinator must be involved with other program staff throughout the full process of assessment of children, which has three steps:

(1) All children enrolled in Head Start are screened as the first step in the assessment process;

(2) Staff also carry out on-going developmental assessment for all enrolled children throughout the year to determine progress and to plan program activities;

(3) Only those children who need further specialized assessment to determine whether they have a disability and may require special education and related services proceed to the next step, evaluation. The disabilities coordinator has primary responsibility for this third step, evaluation, only.

(b) Screening, the first step in the assessment process, consists of standardized health screening and developmental screening which includes speech, hearing and vision. It is a brief process, which can be repeated, and is never used to determine that a child has a disability. It only indicates that a child may need further evaluation to determine whether the child has a disability. Rescreening must be provided as needed.

(1) Grantees must provide for developmental, hearing and vision screenings of all Early Head Start and Head Start children within 45 days of the child's entry into the program. This does not preclude starting screening in the spring, before program services begin in the fall.

(2) Grantees must make concerted efforts to reach and include the most in need and hardest to reach in the screening effort, providing assistance but urging parents to complete screening before the start of the program year.

(3) Developmental screening is a brief check to identify children who need further evaluation to determine whether they may have disabilities. It provides information in three major developmental areas: visual/motor, language and cognition, and gross motor/body awareness for use along with observation data, parent reports and home visit information. When appropriate standardized developmental screening instruments exist, they must be used. The disabilities coordinator must coordinate with the health coordinator and staff who have the responsibility for implementing health screening and with the education staff who have the responsibility for implementing developmental screening.

(c) Staff must inform parents of the types and purposes of the screening well in advance of the screening, the results of these screenings and the purposes and results of any subsequent evaluations.

(d) Developmental assessment, the second step, is the collection of information on each child's functioning in these areas: gross and fine motor skills, perceptual discrimination, cognition, attention skills, self-help, social and receptive skills and expressive language. The disabilities coordinator must coordinate with the education coordinator in the on-going assessment of each Head Start child's functioning in all developmental areas by including this developmental information in later diagnostic and program planning activities for children with disabilities.

(e) The disabilities coordinator must arrange for further, formal, evaluation of a child who has been identified as possibly having a disability, the third step. (1) The disabilities coordinator must refer a child to the LEA for evaluation as soon as the need is evident, starting as early as the child's third birthday.

(2) If the LEA does not evaluate the child, Head Start is responsible for arranging or providing for an evaluation, using its own resources and accessing others. In this case, the evaluation must meet the following requirements:

(i) Testing and evaluation procedures must be selected and administered so as not to be racially or culturally discriminatory, administered in the child's native language or mode of communication, unless it clearly is not feasible to do so.

(ii) Testing and evaluation procedures must be administered by trained (State certified or licensed) personnel.

(iii) No single procedure may be the sole criterion for determining an appropriate educational program for a child.

(iv) The evaluation must be made by a multidisciplinary team or group of persons including at least one teacher or specialist with knowledge in the area of suspected disability.

(v) Evaluators must use only assessment materials which have been validated for the specific purpose for which they are used.

(vi) Tests used with children with impaired sensory, manual or communication skills must be administered so that they reflect the children's aptitudes and achievement levels and not just the disabilities.

(vii) Tests and materials must assess all areas related to the suspected disability.

(viii) In the case of a child whose primary disability appears to be a speech or language impairment, the team must assure that enough tests are used to determine that the impairment is not a symptom of another disability and a speech or language pathologist should be involved in the evaluation.

(3) Parental consent in writing must be obtained before a child can have an initial evaluation to determine whether the child has a disability.

(4) Confidentiality must be maintained in accordance with grantee and State requirements. Parents must be given the opportunity to review their child's records in a timely manner and they must be notified and give permission if additional evaluations are proposed. Grantees must explain the purpose and results of the evaluation and make concerted efforts to help the parents understand them.

(5) The multidisciplinary team provides the results of the evaluation, and its professional opinion that the child does or does not need special education and related services, to the disabilities coordinator. If it is their professional opinion that a child has a disability, the team is to state which of the eligibility criteria applies and provide recommendations for programming, along with their findings. Only children whom the evaluation team determines need special education and related services may be counted as children with disabilities.