# ECE Social-Emotional Lead - Screening Reliability - Frequently Asked Questions (Brookes Publishing)

### How do ECE programs identify children who may need SE consultation?

**Summary:** ASQ:SE-2 is a parent-completed screener, not a diagnostic tool, that flags children whose social-emotional development falls significantly below peers for further attention, covering ages 1-72 months across 9 set-interval questionnaires, and Brookes advises pairing it with ASQ-3 for a full developmental picture.

Brookes' Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional, Second Edition (ASQ:SE-2) is designed for exactly this step. It is a parent-completed screener, not a diagnostic tool: caregivers answer simple questions about a child's social-emotional development (for example, whether a baby can calm himself or whether a child likes to be picked up and held), and children whose responses fall significantly below their peers are flagged for further attention. Brookes describes screening as a way to "carefully and accurately inform meaningful next steps, such as more in-depth social-emotional assessment, further monitoring, or other," and notes that in many cases, screening actually rules out the need for deeper assessment rather than triggering it (agesandstages.com).

ASQ:SE-2 covers children from 1 to 72 months, with 9 questionnaires at set intervals (2, 6, 12, 18, 24, 30, 36, 48, and 60 months), and can be administered in homes, primary care and mental health clinics, child care centers, preschools, and school screening events (agesandstages.com). Programs that want a full picture of a child's development, not just social-emotional concerns, are advised to pair ASQ:SE-2 with ASQ-3 or another general developmental screener, since ASQ:SE-2 focuses exclusively on social-emotional skills and behavior (agesandstages.com).

### How can ECE teachers document SE progress alongside developmental screening?

**Summary:** Running ASQ-3 and ASQ:SE-2 on the same screening cycle gives a complete developmental-plus-social-emotional picture, with flexible scheduling options like pairing screenings at parent events or conferences, and ASQ Online lets programs generate reports and export data as a .csv to document each child's trajectory alongside program-level progress.

The most direct approach is to run a social-emotional screener alongside your developmental screener on the same cycle, so both results live in one record for each child. The Ages & Stages Questionnaires developers recommend screening all children with both ASQ-3 (which covers gross and fine motor, communication, problem solving, and personal-social development) and ASQ:SE-2, the companion social-emotional tool covering seven behavioral areas such as self-regulation, compliance, and social-communication. Together they give a more complete view of development than either tool alone, and the developers stress considering results from both questionnaires before making referrals or a follow-up plan (agesandstages.com).

For center-based programs, the developers offer practical scheduling options: parents can complete both tools at home, ASQ-3 can be completed at a parent event or conference with ASQ:SE-2 to follow, or screening can coincide with parent-teacher conferences (agesandstages.com).

For the documentation itself, ASQ Online lets programs see results for one child or an entire program, at a glance or across time, generate reports in seconds, and export screening and demographic data as a .csv file. That makes it straightforward to show a child's social-emotional trajectory next to their developmental screening history, and to aggregate progress across classrooms for program-level reporting (agesandstages.com).