Psychometrics and Measurement Invariance of the Emotional and Behavioral Screener

A significant number of children in the United States experience major emotional or behavioral problems, including problems that meet diagnostic criteria for a mental health problem. Although estimates vary from study to study, the Surgeon General's Report (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1999) reported that approximately 20% of children have, or have had, a significant mental health problem (see also )affee, Harrington, Cohen, & Moffitt, 2005; National Research Council & Institute of Medicine |NRC & loM|, 2009). Unfortunately, only a small fraction of these children actually receive services. In schools, fewer than 1% of students are school identified with an emotional disability and receive special education services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004 (IDEA) for emotional disturbance (ED; Merikangas et al., 2010). This rate has remained relatively stable over the past several decades (Kauffman & Landrum, 2009) and suggests a lack of progress on efforts to accurately screen, identify, and serve this student population.Over the past several decades, a number of interventions and supports have been developed for the treatment of ED in schoolaged children. However, even with these efforts, the outcomes reveal that ED continues to be identified as one of the most expensive and prevalent chronic disorders in children (Blau, Huang, & Mallery, 2010). For example, the academic functioning of students with ED reveals significant levels of academic underachievement in all content areas across age categories and educational settings (Trout, Nordness, Pierce, & Epstein, 2003). Longitudinal studies such as the National Longitudinal Transition Study-2 (NLTS-2) and the Special Education Elementary Longitudinal Study have found that when compared with students with and without disabilities, students with ED present lower grade point averages across grade levels and higher levels of absenteeism, suspensions, expulsions, and course failures (Wagner, Kutash, Duchnowski, & Epstein, 2005). Eventually, these students drop out of school at much higher rates than their peers (Wagner, Cameto, & Newman, 2003) with related negative adult outcomes including high rates of unemployment, involvement with the criminal justice system, and drug and alcohol dependency and abuse (Kauffman & Landrum, 2009; Wagner, Newman, Cameto, Garza, & Levine, 2005). These poor adult outcomes result in significant individual and family struggles and ultimately lead to a significant toll to society.When students with ED go unidentified and without services, there is a greater chance that their initial emotional and behavioral challenges will continue into adulthood and lead to further mental health problems (Costello, Mustillo, Erkanli, Keeler, & Angold, 2003; Essex et al" 2009). Conversely, researchers have found that early identification and intervention for children who present atrisk behaviors can prevent or limit the intensity of problem behaviors and improve adult outcomes (Conroy, Hendrickson, & Hester, 2004; Mrazek & Mrazek, 2005; NRC & loM, 2009). In response to the increased evidence supporting the value of early identification and intervention, there have been further calls for policy makers and researchers to develop and use psychometrically sound universal screening instruments to identify students who are at risk for ED (Kendziora, 2004). To this end, professionals have identified three key considerations of effective screening instruments: (a) appropriateness of the intended use, (b) technical adequacy, and (c) consumer usefulness and acceptability (Glover & Albers, 2007). In addition, recent federal legislation asks for schools to become more proactive in identifying students with or at risk of ED (Fairbanks, Sugai, Guardino, & Lathrop, 2007).There are a number of screening instruments available to identify students at risk for ED: Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (Kamphaus & Reynolds, 2007), Social Skills Improvement System, Performance Screening Guide (Elliot & Gresham, 2008), Student Risk Screening Scale (Drummond, 1994), and Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (Walker & Severson, 1992). …