UC Berkeley

Many children in the United States suffer from mental health issues, and an even larger number have milder social-emotional difficulties that require support (Blanchard, Gurka, & Blackman, 2006; Child Mind Institute, 2011; Knopf, Park, & Mulye, 2008). Although school-based interventions to address these issues can be effective (Mills et al., 2006), the systems used to identify and treat children are lacking. Current research and trends in education, such as the Response to Intervention (RTI) model, support the use of broad screeners that are efficient and accessible, and that solicit young children's own reports of their well-being. In the current study, a self-survey of social-emotional problems, the How Am I Feeling Survey (HAIFS) was constructed, piloted, analyzed, and revised, with many promising results. The HAIFS was administered to students (N = 392) in Grades 1 through 3, across 31 classrooms in 5 schools. Student responses on the HAIFS demonstrated high levels of internal consistency, structural integrity, and concurrent validity. Parent and teacher reports of child functioning had small positive correlations with child reports and small to moderate correlations with one another. Child self-reports on the HAIFS did not predict performance on standardized tests, which can be explained by a number of factors. Implications of these findings for practice and policy and areas for further research are also explored.