Because young children’s social-emotional development is so critical to their present well-being, as well as their later success, an accurate assessment of their status in this area is important. To fully understand social-emotional development, health care providers should use an instrument that identifies young children at risk of behavioral health problems, specifically, not just a general developmental screening.
This indicator was not updated for the State of Babies Yearbook: 2023. A survey administered by The National Center for Children in Poverty asked Medicaid officials if the state’s Medicaid plan covers social-emotional screening for children ages 0-6 years with a tool specifically designed for the purpose of identifying young children who may need further evaluation for social-emotional and behavioral difficulties.
Paschall, K., Moore, K. A., Pina, G., & Anderson, S. (2020). Comparing the National Outcome Measure of Healthy and Ready to Learn with other well-being and school readiness measures. Child Trends. https://www.childtrends.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/NOMMeasurement_ChildTrends_April2020.pdf
Source:
Smith, S., Granja, M. R., Nguyen, U. T., & Rajani, K. (2018). How states use Medicaid to cover key infant and early childhood mental health services: Results of a 50-state survey (2018 Update). National Center for Children in Poverty. https://www.nccp.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/text_1211.pdf