Mental Health and Special Education Outcomes of Head Start Children Followed Into Elementary School

Abstract

Little is known about the mental health and related special education outcomes of children served by Head Start upon their entrance into public school. However, it seems clear that of the 4 major disability categories (speech-language impairment, emotional disturbance, mental retardation, and learning disability), Head Start children are most often identified as having speech-language impairment, while the smallest group are those deemed to have an emotional disturbance. The authors here report on a series of studies to examine the category of emotional disturbance as it relates to identification of Head Start children in the early elementary grades. As former Head Start children enter elementary school, a pattern emerges in which children with emotional disturbance continue to be underidentified and/or subsequently misidentified in other special education categories, such as learning disability or speech-language impairment, The authors describe these and related findings from this group of studies in or...