Benefits

ASQ gives busy professionals an effective and affordable way to systematically screen infants and young children for developmental and social-emotional delays in the crucial early years of life.

Many state and local programs have selected ASQ as their developmental and social-emotional screening tools of choice. They have found that ASQ offers an attractive balance of reliability, convenience, affordability, and involvement of the family:

• Gives reliable and accurate results. Though many screening tools are in use today, few have been as rigorously researched as ASQ. ASQ has repeatedly been shown to correctly flag children who have delays and exclude those who do not. Extensive and continuing testing has shown that ASQ has high rates of reliability, validity, and accuracy. | more on ASQ research | more on ASQ:SE research
• Makes effective ongoing monitoring of development possible. Because of the rapid changes in the early years, the American Academy of Pediatrics and others recommend that infants and young children be screened on a regular and periodic basis. Professionals can use each age-specific ASQ questionnaire at intervals to watch for and catch developmental and social-emotional delays that may not be detected in a single screening. | more on monitoring

Takes an in-depth look at a child’s social-emotional development. ASQ:SE can help you identify social and emotional problems in children as early as possible. | more on ASQ:SE

• Highly recommended. The American Academy of Neurology, the Child Neurology Society, the First Signs organization dedicated to the early identification of children with developmental delays, and many others, recommend ASQ as a high quality developmental screening tool. | see what users say as well
• Favorably reviewed in articles appearing in the American Academy of Pediatrics journal Pediatrics in Review[1] and the Buros Mental Measurements Yearbook[2].
• Online options that enhance accuracy and efficiency. By popular request, now programs can ensure effective ASQ screening with the NEW user-friendly online management systems (ASQ Pro for single-site programs, ASQ Enterprise for multi-site programs, and ASQ Hub for administrative solutions); online questionnaire completion (ASQ Family Access).
• Saves you money. ASQ is a one-time purchase. The questionnaires and the forms, letters, and activity sheets in the user’s guides can be reproduced as many times as needed by a single site. |more on ordering
• Saves you time. The ASQ questionnaires take 10–15 minutes for parents to complete and 2–3 minutes to score. The questionnaires can be completed online, sent home in advance of a visit, taken on home visits, or filled out in waiting rooms to make good use of limited time. And because there is never a need to reorder the questionnaires, you’ll never be stuck waiting for new forms to arrive in the mail.
• Easy to use. Programs overwhelmingly give ASQ high marks for being parent friendly and easy to use. The questionnaires are color-coded by age, written at a 4th–6th-grade reading level, and accompanied by simple illustrations to enhance understanding. | see sample questionnaire
• Requires little training. Clear instructions are outlined in the User’s Guides, which address special situations such as how to score questionnaires with unanswered items and what to do when a child’s age falls between the given age intervals. Paraprofessionals and office staff can easily learn how to use ASQ. For programs that want more training, instructional videos, on-site workshops, and annual seminars—including a “train-the-trainers” workshop—are all available. | more on training options
• Makes the most of parents’ expert knowledge. Studies show that parents’ observations of their children are very good predictors of developmental delays. Parent-report tools are far less costly than professional-observation tools, and they save professionals time. They also make use of valuable input from the family, fulfilling the spirit of federal mandates calling for the involvement of parents as partners in their child’s assessment and intervention. | more on parent report
• Available in several languages. The ASQ-3 and ASQ:SE questionnaires are available in English or Spanish. The second edition of the ASQ is available in French.
• The only tool that links to developmental milestones. Of the three parent-report tools cited as excellent by the American Academy of Pediatrics, ASQ, Second Edition was the only one that specifically tailored each questionnaire to an age group. ASQ-3 does the same, making it an invaluable tool for educating parents about their child’s development and planning follow-up activities. | compare popular parent-report tools
• Includes follow-up activities. Photocopiable activity sheets designed to help parents encourage their children’s development are included in the User’s Guides and make it easier to educate parents. Even more photocopiable activities linked to age and developmental area are available in English or Spanish in Ages & Stages Learning Activities. | more on the activities

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