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The Ages And Stages Questionnaire (ASQ)

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The Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) was first developed in the 1980's at the University of Oregon. The tool's purpose is to provide a low-cost strategy to monitor the development of infants and young children whose developmental status is in question or at risk. The ASQ has shown to produce high specificity across questionnaire intervals but with lower and varying levels of sensitivity (McKnight, 2014). One of the key recommendations by the American Academy of Pediatrics is early recognition of neurodevelopmental impairment, so the ASQ is way for providers to screen their patients for possible delays or impairments. The ASQs consist of 19 developmental questionnaires designed to be completed by parents or caregivers at different intervals from 4-60 months of …show more content…

As compared with formal examinations, the ASQs have been shown to be both cost-effective and easily administered (Gollenberg, Lynch, Jackson, McGuinness, & Msall, 2010). There are five areas of development that are assessed on the ASQ, which are communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and personal-social. The questionnaire can be filled out by the parent or caregiver in10-20 minutes and scored in 1-5 minutes, so it is very time efficient assessment tool to use in the outpatient setting. The ASQ has been validated in many counties, in different languages and settings, and performs well with children with biological risk factors as well as those with environmental risk factors (Schonhaut, Armijo, Schonstedt, Alvarez, & Cordero, 2013). For scoring, the child's scores in each of the areas are compared to the cutoff points listed on the scoring sheet. The scores from the tool are compared with established norms to determine if a child is delayed in one or more areas. Scores beneath the cutoff points indicates a need for further assessment, scores near the cutoff points call for discussion and monitoring, and scores above the cutoff suggest the child is on track

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