From where I sit, this interregnum would serve no higher purpose for the
children of my state, and would be damaging to the
current cohort of public school students, especially those entering the upper grades.
For the parent report version
of the SDQ used in the
current study, the new four - band classification system for total difficulties scores is as follows: 0 — 13 «close to average», 14 — 16 «slightly raised», 17 — 19 «high» and above 19 «very high».17 For the purposes
of analysis, we considered that all
children with a total difficulties score below the threshold for high risk
of emotional or behavioural problems (< 17) had «good» mental health.18 — 20 The SDQ has previously been found to be acceptable, 21 reliable and valid22 among the SEARCH
cohort.