Systematic Screening Children at Risk for Developing SED: Initial Results from a Prevention Project.

This paper reports on the first year's results of a screening procedure used to identify kindergarten and first grade children at risk of developing serious emotional disturbance. The Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders (SSBD) is a three-stage, multiple-gated procedure for mass screening to determine whether a child should be referred for psycho-educational evaluation. The procedure was adapted to assess level of risk status in a population generally at-risk due to psychosocial factors. Students (N=624) in 24 classrooms in two schools (one with predominantly Hispanic students and the other with predominantly African American students) were screened through three steps or "gates": (1) teacher nomination of 10 children with externalizing behavior profiles and 10 children with internalizing behavior profiles; (2) teacher ranking of the five highest children in each group on the Critical Events Checklist and the Adaptive and Maladaptive Behavior Rating Scale; and (3) use of observational measures in the classroom by trained professionals. Students were classified as low- (14 percent), moderate- (10 percent), or high-risk (4.5 percent) based on the number of gates passed. Concurrent validity was also evaluated. Results suggest the procedure is well suited for classification of risk status as well as identifying children for further evaluation. (DB)