Autism Screening Questionnaire

One of the medical disorders which usually develop in early childhood, and triggers a series of developmental problems, is autism. These problems are referred to as Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD). Maximum cases have reported diagnosis of the condition in children under 3. This condition affects the child's ability to have normal communication with others. The symptoms which the affected children exhibit are associated with their inability to fare well in their social skills, language power, and behavioral aspects. To put it in a different way, these children are completely cut off from the social sphere of their lives. It is unfortunate to learn about the lack of any kind of cure for this condition. However, with prompt action, taken by parents, intensive and early treatment methods do make a great difference to the lives of most children, paving a way for better quality of life. And one of the important steps of this treatment is what we are discussing on today - autism screening questionnaire (ASQ).

Questions Designed for An Autism Spectrum Screening

For parents, more important than knowing about the questions, is knowing about the stages in the process. As we move further in this article, we would come across the various proceedings which are involved in this quiz. Now these stages are focused on the areas of the child's development in social skills, language power and behavioral aspects, as mentioned above.

Social Skills
When it comes to evaluating the social skills of an affected child, the questionnaire here would help experts to understand the autism characteristics of the child, based on his social talents or abilities. The possible questions which parents might come across here may include:

• Whether the child faces any trouble in making eye contact, using various gestures, or coming up with facial expressions? Or, is the child able to make use of non-verbal gestures, which are common in social interaction?
• Does the child show any kind of interest in socializing with other kids, which is necessary for making friends?
• Does the child show any interest in expressing his emotions or interests with his/her parents or others?
• Does the child show any kind of interest what do others feel about something?

Language Skills
Coming to language, the questionnaire would help assess the communication skills of the child. Here, experts would pose the questions which may be something like:

• Has the child started talking before or later than age 2?
• Does the child have or had any kind of development delays by 30 months?
• Can the child begin a conversation and keep up with it?
• If the child is able to use words which are correct, then is he/she able to grasp the idea of how to use such words?
• Does the child imitate the parents' behavior or actions during play time?

Behavior Skills
Testing behavior skills, as you must be knowing, exhibits the child's reaction towards different changes around him/her. Here the questionnaire would include:

• For instance, a magic show is being conducted in the school. So considering this, does the child develop any interest in it as other children normally do?
• Has the child developed a monotonous behavior? Typical example can be humming the same tune over and over, or hand flapping, etc.
• What is the child's reaction to changes being included in a usual routine? For instance, the experts would try to evaluate, with the help of parents, if the child gets disturbed or stressed if his play time or meal time are changed by a slight degree.

Some More Questions

• Does the child react upon calling his/her name?
• Does the baby make smiling gestures
• Does the child shows any signs of being upset when you leave him/her alone, or reacts when you come back?
• Does the baby point to objects, which are typically amusing?
• Does the baby try to look at a direction or object that you are pointing at?
• Is the baby able to crawl, walk or develop all those motor skills which should have been developed by this age? And so on..

As I said, an autism screening questionnaire may have a myriad of questions. But the approach remains the same, as what I have discussed above.