No one knows your child as well as you do, not even the pediatrician or school teacher.  A way to help your pediatrician to better understand your child’s development is “Ages & Stages” (ASQ) questionnaire, recommended by the group ABCD. The questionaire which is filled out by the parent and reviewed by the pediatrician or family doctor asks questions about the child’s communication, gross and fine motor skills, problem solving  etc…
   The Assuring Better Child Health & development project (ABCD) is funded by the Colorado Health Foundation and the Kaiser Community Benefit Fund and supports implementing standardized, developmental screenings for kids up to age five. National Statistics show that pediatricians are only detecting 30% of children with possible developmental delays, but when they use the standardized development screening tool like ASQ the rate increases to 80%. Scores signal parents and pediatricians to the need for Early Intervention Colorado, (WWW.earlyinterventioncolorado.org), which provides support and services for further assessment. The ASQ is NOT a diagnosis of a problem but and indicator for further evaluation.
   Currently all Kaiser and Denver Health sites use the ASQ but ABCDs goal is to have 90% of physicians using the tool by 2010 with each well child check.

For more information contact Bennet at Eileen@acecc.org or go to www.ColoradoABCD.org.