In Louisiana, the Early Childhood Evaluation Project undertook to study the feasibility of screening preschool children for potential handicaps in rural and urban areas using relatively untrained university students and to evaluate the cost effectiveness of different screening instruments. Findings showed that the largest number of children were found to be at risk in the area of communications (253 children), followed by vision (206 children), hearing (185 children), and school readiness (138 children). A total of 466 children were identified as at risk in one or more of the seven developmental categories evaluated. The following instruments were evaluated: the Developmental Assessment Screening Inventory (DASI), the Development Inventory Assessment of Learning (DIAL), the Hess School Readiness Scale (HESS), and the McCarthy Screening Test (MST). Among conclusions were that the most effective instrument in regard to cost, time, ease of administration, number of children tested, and usefulness of data was the MST. The HESS would have been chosen except that the amount of useful data collected would have been less because the test lacks the gross motor component. The DIAL is the most expensive instrument, but because four children can be tested at one time and the data cover all development areas, it was placed above the DASI. (PHR)