Ages and Stages Questionnaires Brazil in monitoring development in early childhood education.

Abstract

In Brazil, the lack of specific instruments for monitoring child development is a problem given that the number of children at risk of delay is relatively high. Newly adapted to the Brazilian context, the Third Ages and Stages Questionnaires Edition - ASQ-3, has been referenced as an excellent instrument for tracking and monitoring child development. The present study aimed to outline the profile of the global development of children from 5 to 50 months through the ASQ-BR who attended the Municipal Centers of Early Childhood Education, as well as to verify the applicability of this instrument to preschool teachers. To this end, the preschool teachers applied the instrument to 392 children. The girls performed better than the boys in the Fine Motor and Personal-Social domains. The highest scores were obtained in the Gross Motor (79.44%), Communication (72.34%) and Problem-Solving (69.54%) domains and the lowest in the Personal-Social and Fine Motor domains. The two domains with the highest incidence of risk were the Personal-Social (22.08%) and the Fine Motor (19.03%), respectively. It can be concluded that although the ASQ-BR presents itself as a potential instrument in the screening of child development in daycare centers and preschools.