The use of a screening tool for school-wide screening of internalizing symptoms is an important strategy for early identification and prevention of more serious and impairing emotional and behavioral health problems in adolescents. However, threshold cut-off scores determined for screening tools may not be suitable for all populations. Using a…

Students encounter hundreds of word problems throughout the elementary grades and on standardized assessments through high school. To demonstrate proficiency on these measures of mathematics competency, students must be skilled in solving word problems. Early detection of word-problem difficulty is essential, and screeners play an important role…

Along with increased attention to universal screening for identifying social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) concerns is the need to ensure the psychometric adequacy of tools available. Nearly all extant tests of universal SEB screening validity focus on traditional inferential forms with little to no study of the consequences of actions…

This study explores how capable young children are of thinking about a potential future that uses DNA screening to assess an individual's likelihood of experiencing learning or behaviour difficulties. Puppets and a scenario-based approach were used to ask children aged 4-10 (n = 165) whether they thought DNA screening might be helpful or harmful.…

As many as 1 in 5 youth in the United States experience social, emotional, and behavioral problems. However, many students with mental health concerns are unidentified and do not receive adequate care. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the factor structure, measurement invariance, and the concurrent and predictive validity of the Early…

Early warning indicator and intervention systems (EWS) have been promoted to identify students at risk of school underperformance or dropout. Current EWS systems typically include administrative data on attendance, behavior incidents requiring disciplinary action, and course performance. This study tested whether specific emotional and behavioral…

People with high skills have a different behavioural repertoire and generally, such characteristics define their type of gifted. However, we do not have conclusive data regarding the characteristics of this population, since it is an area of study that generates many controversies, and when it comes to socio-emotional characteristics,…

Universal screening of students is increasing as programs are implemented for improving social emotional learning (SEL) skills. Assessments used to conduct SEL screenings focus on social emotional strengths; however, such assessments can provide a broader characterization of students' wellbeing by concurrently screening for emotional behavior…

Behavior analysts typically assess and treat challenging behavior after it occurs regularly and at high severity. Although effective, this reactive approach is quite costly and resource intensive. A growing literature supports an alternative preventive approach; the first step involves conducting sensitivity tests to screen the topographies and…

Introduction: Children of parents with mental health concerns are at-risk for social-emotional problems. In this study, we assessed whether children with a mild intellectual disability and parents with mental health concerns are particularly at-risk. Method: Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) reports of children with a mild…

This study examined parental playfulness as a mediator of the association between mothers' emotional difficulties (anxiety, depression) and their children's psychosocial adjustment (externalizing, internalizing, and prosocial behaviours). We also examined the associations between parental playfulness and mothers' supportive / unsupportive…

Background: School absenteeism and health have a close bidirectional link: children with medical conditions miss more school, and chronic absenteeism is tied to poor health outcomes. Despite rising absenteeism, tools to assess school attendance in healthcare settings remain underexplored. Brief, standardized attendance screening may help address…

This intervention case study is written by an Educational and Child Psychologist in the Republic of Ireland, which took place with Leah, a 15-year-old adolescent with a diagnosis of autism attending a post-primary school. Pre- and post-intervention assessment measures included the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) and the Rosenberg…

There has been increasing emphasis in Barbados and the Caribbean region on providing quality education for children with diverse special education needs. The major system for identification of students with special education needs in Barbados relies on classroom teachers to initiate referrals of students to a centralized government office.…

Unaddressed social, emotional, and behavioral (SEB) needs and academic challenges may lead to negative youth outcomes. Universal behavioral risk screeners, like the student self-report Social, Academic, and Emotional Behavior Risk Screener (SAEBRS-SRS), identify at-risk students. To improve screening tool use, research is needed to identify the…