Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR): Evaluation of an Online Tool for Screening Reading Skills in a Developmental-Behavioral Pediatrics Clinic.

OBJECTIVE: Reading difficulties are highly prevalent and frequently co-occur with other neurodevelopmental/behavioral conditions. It is difficult to assess reading routinely in pediatric clinical practice because of time and resource constraints. Rapid Online Assessment of Reading (ROAR) is an objective, gamified assessment that children take in a web browser without adult supervision. This study's purpose was to evaluate ROAR as a screening tool for reading difficulties in a clinical setting.

METHOD: A convenience sample of 6- to 14-year-old children, attending an in-person or telehealth visit in a developmental-behavioral pediatrics (DBP) clinic participated. Children took ROAR and completed the Woodcock-Johnson IV Letter-Word Identification (LWID) and Word Attack (WA). Basic Reading Skills (BRS), a standardized aggregate score of LWID and WA, was used as the gold-standard assessment. The strength of association between standard scores on ROAR and BRS was calculated. BRS scores < 90 (bottom quartile) were classified as poor readers. Receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis was used to assess the quality of ROAR as a screening test.

RESULTS: A sample of 41 children, 78% boys, mean age 9.5 years (SD 2.0 years), completed the study. The correlation of ROAR standard score with BRS was r = 0.66, p < 0.001. ROC curve analysis with ROAR scores accurately classified poor readers with an area under the curve (AUC) of 0.90.

CONCLUSION: ROAR is a useful objective screening tool to identify children at high risk for reading difficulties. Assessment of the tool during a busy clinic was challenging, and a larger replication is warranted.