Measurement in Relation to Mental Health Programs

Views of the role of the school with "disturbed children," with "children with learning and behavior problems," and with the "predelinquent" and other pupils who could not adjust to the demands of the classroom changed from a focus on discovering and treating the causes of behavioral difficulty of children to specific efforts to increase the child's capacity for adapting to the school setting.

Abstract

contributions to the development of measurement procedures in the school mental health field prior to the years with which this article is concerned (roughly 1962-68), a few initial paragraphs will provide a frame of reference for the organization of this review. The school mental health field prior to the 1960's could be described as an interaction of the school with community mental health personnel and attempts at various applications of treatment and therapeutic procedures developed for the child guidance clinic in the school setting. Views of the role of the school with with with learning and behavior problems, and with the predelinquent and other pupils who could not adjust to the demands of the classroom changed from a focus on discovering and treating the causes of behavioral difficulty of children to specific efforts to increase the child's capacity for adapting to the school setting. Attention gradually became centered on the development of assessments of the child's present adjustment status in the school situation rather than a differential diagnosis of the causes of his behavior problems and attempts to modify the causal factors in the hope of obtaining improved school behavior. The concern of specialists in the school mental health field shifted from efforts to treat the causes of the child's difficulty to the expenditure of energy in studying strategies for increasing the child's competency in the school setting. The outcomes of these prior efforts have been assessment procedures and school mental health programs which seek to tap the school's unique capacity as a primary socializing agent in our society. Observers of the school mental health scene can now perceive the delineation of the school's role in improving the mental health of children, based on the belief that the school has the capacity to promote the positive growth and development of children. Schools now rarely attempt to model their efforts after the clinic in assisting the disturbed or ineffective child to survive in school, but instead have established their own methods of assessment, education, and program evaluation for meeting the challenge of improving the mental health status of children. This is not to say that the methods and processes which are needed to maximize the potential of all the members of the