HEALTH3.B Emotional and behavioral difficulties: Percentage of children ages 4–17 with serious or minor emotional or behavioral difficulties who received services by type of service, 2001

HEALTH3.B Emotional and behavioral difficulties: Percentage of children ages 4–17 with serious or minor emotional or behavioral difficulties who received services by type of service, 2001–2010

Type of Service^a	2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006	2007	2008	2009	2010
Serious difficulties
Special education services for an emotional/behavioral problem	22.2	24.3	22.7	22.9	20.0	22.5	26.4	24.5	26.0	25.7
Parent contact with a general doctor^b about emotional/behavioral problem	43.9	46.8	47.2	40.8	39.0	44.4	47.3	40.9	39.7	40.4
Parent contact with a mental health professional^c	43.8	46.6	44.5	50.7	50.0	43.6	52.3	51.3	45.3	49.3
Minor difficulties
Special education services for an emotional/behavioral problem	5.4	4.6	4.6	5.5	4.8	4.8	6.7	7.1	7.2	6.0
Parent contact with a general doctor^b about emotional/behavioral problem	14.1	15.3	12.4	15.1	13.1	11.3	14.8	14.5	16.6	13.4
Parent contact with a mental health professional^c	15.0	16.9	15.9	18.5	15.7	16.9	19.9	21.8	22.9	18.5
^a A child who had more than one type of service or contact was included in more than one row.
^b A general doctor was defined as a doctor who treats a variety of illnesses, such as a doctor in general practice, pediatrics, family medicine, or internal medicine.
^c Mental health professional was defined as a psychiatrist, psychologist, psychiatric nurse, or clinical social worker.
NOTE: Emotional or behavioral difficulties of children were based on parental responses to the following question on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ):¹ “Overall, do you think that (child) has any difficulties in one or more of the following areas: emotions, concentration, behavior, or being able to get along with other people?” Response choices were: (1) no; (2) yes, minor difficulties; (3) yes, definite difficulties; and (4) yes, severe difficulties. Children with serious emotional or behavioral difficulties are defined as those whose parent responded “yes, definite” or “yes, severe.” These difficulties may be similar to but do not equate with the Federal definition of serious emotional disturbances (SED), used by the Federal government for planning purposes. Children with minor emotional or behavioral difficulties are defined as those whose parent responded "yes, minor difficulties".
SOURCE: National Center for Health Statistics, National Health Interview Survey.
¹ Goodman, R. (1999). The extended version of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire as a guide to child psychiatric caseness and consequent burden. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 40, 791–799.