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)

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