The ASQ-3 User's Guide says to calculate an adjusted age when a child is born "3 or more weeks" premature. The 2nd edition of ASQ said to adjust age when a child is born "more than 3 weeks" premature. Was this an intentional change?
The developers made the change in how prematurity is defined between editions in an attempt to make determing prematurity and calculating age easier for users to understand and implement. If your program has regularly used the "more than 3 weeks" prematurity guideline from the 2nd edition, you may continue to do so a…
When adjusting age for prematurity, if the child's last ASQ-3 result shows that he has developed skills expected of his chronological age, can you switch to using chronological age to choose the next interval?
Age adjustments for prematurity are calculated for the benefit of infants; it is intended to give them an opportunity to catch up. If that has already happened, it makes sense to revert to a chronological age when choosing ASQ-3 intervals.
Does the ASQ-3 require utilizing adjusted age with both pre-term infants (e.g., 20 weeks, 0 days to 36 weeks, 6 days), as well as early term infants (e.g., 37 weeks, 0 days to 38 weeks, 6 days)?
Adjusted age is used when a child is born 3 or more weeks premature. When conducting research for ASQ-3, the authors used 39 weeks as a full-term pregnancy. A child born at 36 weeks of gestation or earlier would be considered premature and would need an adjusted age calculated until 2 years chronological age. Some pr…
Is age adjusted for prematurity when using the ASQ:SE-2, or only for the ASQ-3?
Yes, a child's age is adjusted for prematurity when using ASQ:SE-2. The guidelines are the same as for ASQ-3: age should be adjusted if a child is born 3 or more weeks premature and is younger than 2 years chronologically.
If a child was born at a gestational age of 34 weeks and 5 days, how many weeks premature is the child?
The ASQ developers used 39 weeks as a full-term pregnancy in their research and data analyses. In your example, the child's gestational age is rounded up to 35 weeks. 35 weeks is subtracted from 39 weeks (a full-term pregnancy) so the child is 4 weeks premature. However, if your program uses 40 weeks as a full-term …
When adjusting age for prematurity, do you round up or down to obtain gestational age in weeks? For example, if a child is born at 33 weeks, 5 days, is the child born at 33 weeks gestation or 34 weeks gestation?
The developers recommend to round the number of weeks up for 4 or more days and to round down for 3 days or less. In your example, 33 weeks, 5 days would be rounded to 34 weeks gestation. A child born at 33 weeks, 3 days would be rounded down to 33 weeks gestation.
