ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the measurement of mental health and mental illness. The act of measuring mental health usually has very few, if any, effects on what is being measured. However, what people do with a measurement they obtain may well have effects on mental health. Measurement may be used in a variety of ways, and it may be appropriate or inappropriate, helpful or unhelpful. Mental measurements are particularly vulnerable to criticism for being wrong or inaccurate or invalid or unreliable. There is a potential explanation for the extraordinarily low percentage of children with mental health problems receiving special education. Mental health professionals use the guidelines in the current edition of the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM). The chapter considers how measurement of mental health is related to more specific problems. It shows how mental illness is related to special education for children and youth who fall into the federal category of emotional disturbance (ED).
