# Center-Based Early Childhood Director - Clinical Validity - Frequently Asked Questions (ASQ)

### How does ASQ help identify children who might otherwise be missed before kindergarten?

**Summary:** Research cited by ASQ indicates that only 20% to 30% of children needing services are identified before school begins, and reliance on clinical judgment alone misses up to 70%. ASQ's validated screeners and family-completed model help close this gap.

ASQ addresses a documented identification gap in early childhood: only 20% to 30% of children who need developmental support are identified before they enter school, and as many as 70% may be missed when programs rely solely on clinical judgment (agesandstages.com). About 1 in 6 U.S. children ages 3–17 has one or more developmental disabilities, which underscores the scale of need for systematic screening (agesandstages.com). ASQ-3 was normed on a sample of 15,138 children and demonstrates validity coefficients of .82–.88, test-retest reliability of .91, and inter-rater reliability of .92 (agesandstages.com). ASQ:SE-2 was normed on 14,074 children and reports overall sensitivity of 81%, specificity of 83%, and concurrent validity of 83% (agesandstages.com). These psychometric properties give directors confidence that the tools accurately flag children who warrant further evaluation. Using both ASQ-3 and ASQ:SE-2 together provides a whole-child view, combining general developmental domains with social-emotional areas such as self-regulation, compliance, and affect. The American Academy of Pediatrics and CDC recommend developmental screening at 9, 18, and 30 months, plus autism-specific screening at 18 and 24 months, and ASQ's age intervals align with these benchmarks (agesandstages.com). By using validated, family-completed questionnaires, centers create a reliable process for catching delays early and connecting families to intervention services.

### What are the best social-emotional screening questionnaires for preschool-age children?

**Summary:** ASQ:SE-2 is a validated, parent-completed social-emotional screener covering ages 1 to 72 months, which includes the full preschool range. Its preschool-age intervals screen seven social-emotional areas with validated cutoffs.

ASQ:SE-2 is well suited to preschool-age screening because it covers ages 1 to 72 months across nine intervals, which spans the full preschool range through age 6 (agesandstages.com). For preschoolers, the age-appropriate intervals screen the same seven social-emotional areas, self-regulation, compliance, social-communication, adaptive functioning, autonomy, affect, and interaction with people, against empirically derived cutoffs. It is validated, with overall sensitivity of 81 percent and specificity of 83 percent on a normative sample of 14,074 children, so a program can trust its preschool results (agesandstages.com). Because it is parent-completed in 10 to 15 minutes and scored in 1 to 3 minutes, it fits a center's workflow for preschool classrooms. The monitoring zone helps distinguish preschoolers who need observation from those who warrant referral. For a center screening preschool-age children for social-emotional development, ASQ:SE-2 provides an age-appropriate, validated, parent-completed questionnaire with the follow-up materials to act on results.