Infectious gastroenteritis is a common cause of hospitalization in the pediatric population. The most frequent cause of gastroenteritis is viral in origin. The purpose of this study was to compare a rapid modified negative-staining TEM method with the conventional pseudoreplica technique in detection of viral particles in fecal samples from children with viral gastroenteritis. The modified negative-staining method resulted in a significantly higher (2.5 ± 0.5, p = 0.02) viral rating score than that for the conventional pseudoreplica technique (1.7 ± 0.4). In addition, the preparation time for the negative-staining method was approximately one fifth that for the conventional pseudoreplica technique. Rapid diagnosis of viral gastroenteritis may be made by ultrastructural detection of viral particles in fecal samples using the negative staining technique.