Comparing Informants for Mental Health Screening at the Preschool Level

Abstract

Universal screening for mental health in preschools provides the opportunity for early identification and early intervention, but guidance regarding which informants to use is needed. Preschoolers’ (N = 535) parent and teacher reports across two screening forms were analyzed to determine similarities and discrepancies for classification results and screener scores. The analyses also examined whether an additional rater provided incrementally valid information to the prediction of longitudinal kindergarten outcomes. Parents’ and teachers’ screening scores were significantly correlated across forms by rater and across raters. However, categorical classification results indicated that teachers were more likely than parents to rate preschoolers in at-risk ranges across forms. Finally, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that teacher ratings were predictive of kindergarten social–emotional, cognitive, and academic outcomes and that the addition of parent ratings did not significantly improve prediction of outcomes. Implications are discussed in the context of multiple raters within multiple-gating screening procedures.

Impact Statement

Universal screening for behavioral and emotional risk is important at the preschool level because it provides a critical opportunity for early identification and early intervention. Parents and teachers who participated in universal screening demonstrated low levels of agreement in their ratings of preschool children’s emotional and behavioral risk, although both are valuable informants. If the goal of screening is to predict later kindergarten academic and social–emotional outcomes, practitioners may consider collecting screening information from teachers first.

Keywords:

• screening,
• informants,
• mental health,
• preschool

ASSOCIATE EDITOR:

• Timothy Curby

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We thank the families, teachers, and schools who generously contributed their time to this project. The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

DISCLOSURE

The authors have no conflicts of interest to report.

Notes

1 Formulas and norming information for Internalizing and Externalizing Risk subscales are not available in the BESS manual; thus, T-score conversion of these raw scores was not possible. After manually computing raw internalizing and externalizing sum scores per instructions in the BESS manual, mean scores were calculated to allow for comparison of teacher and parent responses on these subscales.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Stephanie A. Moore

Stephanie A. Moore, PhD, is an assistant professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of California Riverside. She received her PhD in counseling, clinical, and school psychology from the University of California Santa Barbara. She is a nationally certified school psychologist whose research focuses on promoting youth wellness by advancing comprehensive and multitiered school mental health support systems.

Erin Dowdy

Erin Dowdy, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara. She is a licensed psychologist and a nationally certified school psychologist. Her research career has focused on behavioral assessment, particularly universal assessment for social and emotional health and risk.

Isabelle Fleury

Isabelle Fleury, MEd, is a doctoral student in the Department of Counseling, Clinical, and School Psychology at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her research interests are in the areas of mental health screening, integrated behavioral health, psychological measurement, student mental health, and trauma-informed care.

Christine DiStefano

Christine DiStefano, PhD, is the E.S. Gambrell Professor of Educational Studies at the University of South Carolina, where she teaches classes in educational/psychological measurement. Her research interests include structural equation modeling with survey data, classification, and investigations of social–emotional/behavioral health with young children.

Fred W. Greer

Fred Greer, PhD, is a research associate professor in the Department of Educational Studies at the University of South Carolina. He is a certified school psychologist whose research focuses on early childhood social–emotional/behavioral assessment.