ORIGINAL PAPER Screening for Social, Emotional, and Behavioral Problems at Kindergarten Entry: The Utility of Two Teacher Rating Scales Julie Sarno Owens 1 • Alex S. Holdaway 1 • Verenea J. Serrano 1 • Lina K. Himawan 1 • Yuko Watabe 1,2 • Jennifer Storer 1,3 • Miyah Grant 1 • Nina Andrews 4 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract We examined (a) the utility of teacher ratings on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ; Goodman in J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 40:1337–1345, 2001. doi:10.1097/00004583-200111000- 00015) and BASC-2 Behavioral and Emotional Screening System (BESS; Kamphaus and Reynolds in Behavior assessment system for children-second edition: behavioral and emotional screening system. Pearson, Bloomington, 2007), completed at kindergarten entry, in identifying risk status as defined by important criterion variables (teacher ratings of impairment, daily behavioral performance, and quarterly grades in kindergarten and first grade), and (b) the incremental validity of scores on each of these rating scales in predicting criterion variables beyond that predicted by the school district’s academic screening tool. The partici- pants were 248 kindergarten students (91 % response rate) from one school district. Receiver operating characteristic analyses and area under the curve values indicate that both measures have moderate to high utility (AUCs C .78) in identifying children demonstrating at-risk academic per- formance, problematic classroom behavior, and impair- ment in social and emotional functioning. Regression analyses indicate that both measures account for incre- mental variance (between 6.69 and 45.84 %) in kinder- garten outcomes beyond that accounted for by the school district’s academic screening tool. The BESS was a slightly stronger predictor of academic outcomes, and the SDQ was a slightly stronger predictor of peer outcomes. Implications for selecting a teacher measure for universal screening of social, emotional, and behavioral problems at kindergarten entry are discussed. Keywords Universal screening Á Social–emotional functioning Á Behavioral functioning, academic functioning Á SDQ Á BESS & Julie Sarno Owens owensj@ohio.edu Alex S. Holdaway ah218010@ohio.edu Verenea J. Serrano vs198311@ohio.edu Lina K. Himawan himawan@ohio.edu Yuko Watabe yukomikiko@hotmail.com Jennifer Storer jenniestorer@gmail.com Miyah Grant mg519212@ohio.edu Nina Andrews nandrews@lhsd.k12.oh.us 1 Psychology Department, Porter Hall 200, Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701, USA 2 USC University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA 3 KVC West Virginia, 300 Kenton Drive, Ste. 200, Charleston, WV 25311, USA 4 Logan Hocking School District, 2019 E. Front Street, Logan, OH 43138, USA 123 School Mental Health DOI 10.1007/s12310-016-9176-1