Mental Health and Academic Performance of German Elementary Pupils

Author(s):

Dietmar Goelitz(presenting / submitting)Kevin Dadaczynski Michael Schurig Peter Paulus

Conference:

ECER 2012

Network:

08. Research on Health Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

08 SES 12 B, Wellbeing, Learning and Academic Achievement

Parallel Paper Session

Time:

2012-09-21

09:00-10:30

Room:

FFL - Aula 10

Chair:

Monica Carlsson

Contribution

We will analyze the relationship between the mental health of elementary school pupils according to three informants and their scholastic achievement in a cross sectional german primary school sample. Information on children’s mental health (externalizing and internalizing symptoms) was collected from teachers, parents and children. Recent studies on the mental health of children (Kiggs; see Ravens-Sieberer et al., 2007; 2008) do not use a multi-informant perspective for elementary school children. As a main innovation, the project uses children’s self reports of mental health problems: "… Child mental health assessment requires input from several informants. In general, parents and teachers tend to notice children’s externalizing behavior problems, while children themselves tend to be better at identifying their internalizing disorders such as depression, anxiety, phobia, and so forth. [….] Yet, it has been no easy task to obtain standardized information from young children themselves on their own mental health. One promising technique is based on cognitive theories that suggest that the combination of visual and auditory stimuli generates better information processing and better understanding of verbal concepts than either visual or auditory stimuli alone. It was in this perspective that a computerized pictorial questionnaire, the Dominic Interactive, combining auditory as well as visual symptom items, was potentially appropriate for … epidemiological survey ." (Kovess et al., 2002)

Method

Data were collected from a randomized sample of elementary schools in northern Germany (N = 886 children) in 25 schools. The sample is the german subsample of the School Children’s Mental Health in Europe study (SCMHE; Project No. 2006336, financed by the European Comission; executive summaries are available on www.scmheproject.com). Children were interviewed with the computerized and pictorial Dominic Interactive (Valla, Bergeron, Berube, & Gaudet, 1994; Ederer, 2004), a reliable self report screening that produces risk classifications for 4 internalizing and 3 externalizing DSM-IV diagnoses. The view of parents and teachers on the mental health of the children was collected with the Strength and Difficulties Questionnaires (Goodman, 1997; Woerner, Becker, Friedrich, Klasen, Goodman & Rothenberger, 2002). For information on the achievement of the children, teachers and parents were asked for ratings of general competencies as well as of competencies and grades in reading, spelling and in mathematics. We will focus on analyzing symptom mean scores in our investigation.

Expected Outcomes

Correlations between parents’ and teacher’ ratings of achievement and mental health indicate small associations (r between .00 and .32). Children’s information is slightly higher associated with achievement than parents’ and teachers’ information, internalizing symptoms are slightly higher associated with achievement than externalising symptoms. Consequences for further research on monitoring mental health in elementary schools are discussed, especially the role of gathering information on internalising and externalising mental health problems from children as informants and its possible predictive value for identifying pupils at risk for achievement problems.

References

Becker, A., Woerner, W., Hasselhorn, M., Banaschewski, T. & Rothenberger, A. (2004). Validation of the parent and teacher SDQ in a clinical sample. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 13(Suppl2), II11-II16. Ederer, E. M. (2004). Mental health problems in young children: Self-reports and significant others as informants. Psychology Science, 46(Supplement I), 123---140. Goodman, R. (1997). The Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: a research note. J Child Psychol Psychiatry, 38, 581---586. Kovess, V., Chee, C. C., Berthiaume, C., Vantalon, V., Piquet, C., Gras-Vincendon, A., Martin, C. & Alles-Jardel, M. (2002). A French study of the Dominic Interactive. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 37(9), 441-448. Ravens-Sieberer, U., Wille, N., Bettge, S. & Erhart, M. (2007). Psychische Gesundheit von Kindern und Jugendlichen in Deutschland. Ressourcen für die psychische Entwicklung von Kindern und Jugendlichen. Bundesgesundheitsblatt, H. Volume 50, Number 5/6, S. 800–809. Ravens Sieberer, U., Wille, N., Erhart, M., Bettge, S., Wittchen, H. U., Rothenberger, A., Herpertz Dahlmann, B., Resch, F., Holling, H., Bullinger, M., Barkmann, C., Schulte Markwort, M. & Döpfner, M. (2008). Prevalence of mental health problems among children and adolescents in Germany: Results of the BELLA study within the National Health Interview and Examination Survey. European Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 17(Suppl 1), 22-3Valla, J. P., Bergeron, L. & Smolla, N. (2000). The Dominic-R: A pictorial interview for 6- to 11-year-old children. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 39(1), 85-93. Website of the SCMHE Project Group (2011). http://www.scmheproject.com/. Visited on Nov. 11th 2011.

Author Information

Dietmar Goelitz (presenting / submitting)

Leuphana University

Centre of Applied Sciences of Health

Lueneburg

Kevin Dadaczynski

Leuphana University, Germany

Michael Schurig

University of Bremen, Germany

Peter Paulus