ASQ Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

What is ASQ?

ASQ is a low-cost, reliable tool for screening infants and young children for developmental delays during the crucial first 5 years of life.

How long does it take to administer ASQ?

Questionnaires take 10–15 minutes for parents or caregivers to complete. Scoring takes about 2–3 minutes and can be conducted by professionals, paraprofessionals, or program staff.

What developmental areas does ASQ address?

ASQ addresses five developmental areas: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and personal-social. (ASQ:SE, a companion to ASQ, exclusively addresses social-emotional behaviors: self-regulation, compliance, communication, adaptive functioning, autonomy, affect, and interaction with people.)

What age range does ASQ cover?

The ASQ system, which includes 19 questionnaires, covers 4 months through 5 years of age. Questionnaires are available to be administered at any or all of the following intervals: 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 42, 48, 54, and 60 months. The ASQ User's Guide provides instructions for screening children whose ages fall between intervals.

Who completes the ASQ questionnaires?

Parents or caregivers complete the ASQ questionnaires independently, or, if necessary, with the assistance of a staff member.

In what setting can the ASQ questionnaires be completed?

The questionnaires can be completed independently at home; during home visits by nurses, social workers, or program staff; in waiting areas; or in educational centers. The ASQ system can be adapted to a variety of settings, including primary care clinics, child care settings, and teen parenting programs. 

Are the ASQ questionnaires easy to use?

The ASQ questionnaires are color-coded; worded in simple, straightforward language (at a 4th–6th-grade reading level); and illustrated for ease of understanding. Each questionnaire comes with:

• a title page with instructions
• an information sheet for identification
• 30 simply worded activities—6 for each of the 5 developmental areas
• an information summary sheet for scoring and general comments

How do you score an ASQ questionnaire?

To score a questionnaire, professionals use a simple formula to convert parents' responses to points:

• Each yes response is assigned 10 points
• Each sometimes is assigned 5 points
• Each not yet is assigned 0 points

The points are totaled for each developmental area and transferred to a summary sheet. In total, scoring takes only about 2–3 minutes.

What is included in The ASQ User’s Guide?

The ASQ User's Guide moves professionals through every step of the ASQ process, providing detailed information on everything from parent enrollment to scoring.

Helpful appendices provide samples of all important forms and letters in English and Spanish, supplemental activity sheets for parents, and guidelines for choosing referral criteria, as well as a detailed technical report on the research behind ASQ and a glossary of terms.

Can the ASQ questionnaires be photocopied?

Yes, the ASQ and ASQ:SE questionnaires as well as the sample letters and forms in the user’s guides may be photocopied for use at a single site with all of the children served by the purchasing organization at no additional charge. See the Photocopying Release [coming soon] for certain restrictions.

Can you provide a sample question?

A question from the Communication section of the ASQ 48-month questionnaire, for example, is: Without giving help by pointing or repeating, does your child follow three directions that are unrelated to one another. For example, you may ask your child to "Clap your hands, walk to the door, and sit down." Download an actual questionnaire.

How can the ASQ questionnaires be used as a parent education tool?

Each questionnaire discusses developmental activities tied to the age of the child being screened. In completing and reviewing the questionnaire, parents learn about general developmental milestones as well as their own child’s strengths.

Parents find it helpful to receive suggested learning activities they can work on with their child. (Learning activity sheets can be photocopied from The ASQ User’s Guide, and more are available in the book Ages & Stages Learning Activities.)

How does ASQ involve parents?

ASQ relies on parents to observe their child and to complete the simple questionnaires about their child's abilities. In addition to being cost effective, having parents complete the developmental questionnaires enhances the accuracy of the screening process because of the variety and array of information parents have about their children. Using parent-completed tools also fulfills the spirit of Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) amendments, which call for parents to be partners in their child's assessment and intervention activities.

Is ASQ parent-friendly?

The ASQ questionnaires have been carefully designed to ensure clarity and ease of implementation for parents. Each questionnaire item is written in simple, straightforward language (at a 4th–6th-grade reading level), illustrations are provided when possible, and concrete examples are included. To further enhance parents' involvement, The ASQ User's Guide provides reproducible sheets of intervention activities for parents to try at home with their children.

Is training for ASQ available?

In addition to the comprehensive, easy-to-follow user’s guide, training videos, on-site workshops through Brookes On Location, and annual training seminars are available.

Are children comfortable completing the ASQ activities?

The ASQ system is versatile, flexible, culturally sensitive, and designed to be administered at home. This means children can be tested in their usual environment and at the parents' convenience. Activities allow children to play, move about, and practice daily living skills. They often involve home items like cereal boxes and mirrors or basic toys like balls, blocks, or crayons.

Is ASQ technically sound?

Research on the accuracy of the ASQ has been conducted at the Center on Human Development, University of Oregon, Eugene, using more than 8,000 completed questionnaires. Validity has been studied by comparing the classification of questionnaires completed by parents with the classification of standardized assessments by trained examiners. These comparisons were made using the Revised Gesell Developmental Schedules, the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale, the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, and the Battelle Developmental Inventory. Overall agreement across questionnaires was 84%.

Research on the reliability of the questionnaires has examined interrater and test-retest reliability as well as internal consistency, and all studies have exceeded 90% agreement. Sensitivity and specificity studies are also high across questionnaire intervals and standardized assessments. Details can be found in the technical report in The ASQ User's Guide.

Is ASQ available in languages besides English?

Yes, ASQ questionnaires are also available in Spanish, French, and Korean, and ASQ:SE questionnaires are also available in Spanish. Both the ASQ and ASQ:SE are available in Norwegian from R.BUP. Translations are in development in other languages, including Mandarin Chinese, Somail, and Arabic. If you would like more information about the availability of ASQ and ASQ:SE in other languages, please e-mail rights@brookespublishing.com.

Are the master questionnaires on the CD-ROMs interactive?

No, the questionnaires on the CD-ROMs are in PDF format and are not fillable or interactive. The CD-ROMs are basically a more durable version of the paper forms. You can use the CD-ROMs to print the questionnaires and then photocopy them as needed. See the Photocopying Release [coming soon] for details.

Can I post the PDF questionnaires on the CD-ROMS on my program's web site for parents to access?

If your program's web site is either password-protected or has a password-protected section, the ASQ and ASQ:SE questionnaires and intervention activity sheets can be posted. The password can be given to your clients so that they can go to the site, print out the questionnaires, fill them in, and return them to you. This saves you the time and expense involved in mailing out the forms. Clients can be directed to their local library if they don’t have Internet access at home.

Can I post the PDF questionnaires on the CD-ROMS on my program's computer network?

The questionnaires, scoring sheets, mail-back sheets, and intervention activities can be posted on your program's local area network (LAN) if only people in your organization can have access to the LAN. Employees can then print and use the questionnaires as needed from their own computers. You may also set up a computer at your location for parents to use.

If all computers for your program are at the same site (in the same physical location), then no multi-site license is needed. If your organization has various sites (e.g., the downtown office, the East branch, the North branch), then the main site needs to purchase the CD-ROM and a user’s guide for ASQ and/or ASQ:SE, plus a multi-site license and a user’s guide for each additional site.

Can I post the ASQ and ASQ:SE sample questionnaires from your web site on my web site?

No. However, we encourage and permit linking from your web site to the samples questionnaires on our web site.

I would like to develop an electronic, interactive version of the ASQ or ASQ:SE. Who do I contact with my ideas?

We are very selective in licensing electronic rights to our ASQ family of products due to the number of requests we receive each week. However, we encourage you to submit your proposal to rights@brookespublishing.com.

I’d like to share the data I’ve collected with ASQ/ASQ:SE with the authors to help further their research and the development of future editions. How do I do that?

The authors of the ASQ/ASQ:SE are always pleased to receive blind data. Please email rights@brookespublishing.com with your data and complete contact information, which will be shared only with the authors and not used by Brookes Publishing or any other party.

Can I charge parents, caregivers, or other service providers a fee for the questionnaires?

No, fees other than or in excess of the exact cost to print the questionnaires from the CD-ROM or photocopy the paper forms may not be charged.

I work in a physician’s office and we would like to charge our patients’ insurance companies for administering the ASQ/ASQ:SE. Are we allowed to do that?

Yes, you may charge insurance, as detailed in the current Photocopying Release [coming soon]. Reimbursement of usual and customary charges for developmental screening, when performed with other evaluation and management services, is permitted.