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…

Internalizing and externalizing problems are common targets for school mental health screening. Prior research supports the interpretation of scores from the Youth Internalizing Problems Screener (YIPS) and the Youth Externalizing Problems Screener (YEPS), which were developed separately yet intended as companion measures. We extended previous…

Direct observation of classroom behavior in young children enriches our understanding of their behavior in its natural context, informing both assessment and intervention strategies to foster supportive learning environments. However, a notable gap in the literature concerning effective direct observation tools specifically designed for this…

We report findings of this replication study, examining the internalizing subscale (SRSS-I4) of the revised version of the Student Risk Screening Scale for Internalizing and Externalizing behavior (SRSS-IE 9) and the internalizing subscale of the Teacher Report Form (TRF). Using the sample from 13 elementary schools across three U.S. states with…

Psychosocial competencies; such as prosocial behaviors, compliance with authority, attention regulation, independence, and emotional regulation; play a crucial role in child development. Higher levels of these competencies in childhood are linked to fewer behavior problems, while deficits in these competencies can predict future problem behaviors.…

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…

Universal screening for social, emotional, and behavioral risk is an important method for identifying students in need of additional or targeted support (Eklund and Dowdy in School Mental Health 6:40-49, 2014). Research is needed to explore how potential bias may be implicated in universal screening. We investigated student demographics as…

The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ) is a brief instrument developed primarily for screening children and adolescents for social-emotional learning. The SDQ contains four factors related to socio-emotional difficulties and one factor related to prosocial behaviour. However, studies of its factor structure have produced mixed results.…

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic has had a substantial impact on children and families worldwide. Children's mental health has been at the forefront of pandemic research, with several observational studies documenting its decline. Limited person-centred research exists, however, investigating the diverse mental health responses of vulnerable…

In this article, we report findings of a psychometric study comparing two screening tools: the Student Risk Screening Scale-Internalizing and Externalizing (SRSS-IE) and the Devereaux Student Strengths Assessment-mini (DESSA-mini). Participants included 3,110 kindergarten through fifth-grade elementary students from five schools in one district in…

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of instruments for assessing mental health (MH) among autistic people. This study aimed to review the psychometric properties of broadband instruments used to assess MH problems among autistic people. In accordance with the PRISMA guidelines (PROSPERO: CRD42022316571) we searched the APA PsycINFO via…

Delay of gratification tasks have an impressive predictive value for various outcomes and are designed to measure self-regulation. Since many behavioural and psychological conditions in children are related to limitations in self-regulation, the extent to which delay tasks can be used as a screening for the detection of psychopathology is…

Mental health conditions are more prevalent in autistic people than non-autistic people. The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire is a commonly used screening tool for emotional and behavioural difficulties in autistic children and adolescents. However, few studies have assessed the psychometric properties of the Strengths and Difficulties…

Universal behavior screening is used in schools worldwide to detect students with and at risk for behavioral challenges. As schools prepare to implement screening, they face a major decision: which screening tool to use. Several scholars have published recommendations to support education leaders in selecting a screening assessment (Glover &…

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.…