A Program-wide Look at Early Identification of Socioemotional and Behavioral Needs in Head Start Programs to Better Serve Children
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55370/hsdialog.v23i2.1201Keywords:
early identification, socioemotional, screening tools, Head StartAbstract
Early childhood programs, such as Head Start, that serve children at risk can implement programmatic screening procedures to ensure equitable identification of children displaying a range of socioemotional and behavioral needs. We examined administrative records linked to a program-wide mental health screening tool to examine patterns of special needs referral and identification for children within the Head Start program (N=7,301 children). Findings showed that male, Hispanic, and Spanish-speaking Dual Language Learner (DLL) children were identified with a disability at a higher rate compared to female, non-Hispanic, and non-DLL children. Children displaying challenging behaviors such as aggressive, oppositional, or disruptive behavior were identified at higher rates than children displaying shy or socially withdrawn behaviors.
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Copyright © by the authors. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).