Assessments (ASQ's)

I feel it is key to assess students’ milestones in development. Mainly focusing on whether they reached major developmental stages and should be near or approaching where they should be at their age. Assessment in Fine Motor, Communication, Language Development, Gross Motor, and Social Emotional Development can be a great way to view the child’s development holistically. I personally feel that The Ages and Stages Questionnaires developed by Diane Bricker and Jane Squires is a great assessment to use. 

Website: http://agesandstages.com/

“The Ages and Stages Questionnaires are parent-completed development and social-emotional screeners for young children. Easy, reliable, and cost-effective, these screeners help determine if there are delays in key areas of a child's development.

THe ASQ-3 is a developmental screener that evaluates communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving, and personal-social development. It can be used for infants up to children at age 5. The Ages and Stages Questionnaire takes 10–15 minutes to complete and 2–3 minutes to score and has 30 items per questionnaire with 10 questions.

The ASQ:SE-2 is a social-emotional screener that evaluates 7 key areas including self-regulation, compliance, communication, adaptive functioning, autonomy, affect, and interaction with people. Periodically screen children ages 1–72 months to monitor progress and detect if there are social-emotional delays in development using the Ages and Stages Questionnaires.”
(Redleaf Press. n.d.)

With the agency I work with we use the Ages and Stages Questionnaire to not only build on parent partnerships but to learn from our families when getting to know their child. We use these questionnaires to see when the parents see their child and ways, we can continue their development within the classroom.

I researched other parts of the world to see if anyone else feels that the Ages and Stages Questionnaire is valuable to their program as well. Come to find programs in the UK use it as well. According to a Public Health Chief Nurse in England, she published a statement from Claire Walker whom is a Senior Program Manager, “in the North while we could see the value of the questionnaire as a tool, we wanted to do more. In conjunction with Health Education England colleagues we were keen to ensure Health Visitors provided a really skilled high-quality service through receiving specialized training. We also wanted to give them the opportunity to use the full range of products available. So, through a bid supported by the NHS England Health Visitor Transformation Fund we purchased play bags for each health visiting provider to use with parents and children.” (Walker. C., & Bennett. V. 2015)

This is a great extension of these assessments. Not only should we in the schools develop children’s skills, in the areas of their individual needs. But we should provide families with play bags that can continue development not only in the classroom but at home.

Resource:

Redleaf Press. (n.d.) AGES AND STAGES QUESTIONNAIRES. Retrieved from, https://www.redleafpress.org/asq.aspx?gclid=Cj0KCQiAxZPgBRCmARIsAOrTHSZcAuoxvOcjop0_gpyq0PWKwdDqzzuNXyHk4JFS7kiSmlQnT1rtE-saAooAEALw_wcB

Walker. C., & Bennett. V. (2015) Ages and Stages Questionnaire - making it even more family friendly by Clarie Walker. Retrieved from, https://vivbennett.blog.gov.uk/2015/03/05/ages-and-stages-questionnaire-making-it-more-family-friendly-claire-walker/