Developmental screening is a short, standardized check of whether a young child's communication, motor, problem-solving and social-emotional skills are developing as expected — run with a set tool, not on a hunch.
The timing comes from the program's screening policy (Head Start programs have a federal deadline), and the teacher may do much of the work: getting the questionnaire out, scoring what comes back, recording the result, and flagging what needs a second look.
What is developmental screening?
A developmental screening is a brief, structured look at how a child is developing, done with a standardized tool whose questions and cutoffs are set in advance.
It covers broad skill areas — how a child communicates, moves, solves problems and gets along with people — and how the result gets read is built into the tool: ASQ-3's "monitoring zone" for results that fall near the cutoff is one example of a screener sorting results to make it easier to keep track of children at risk.
One federal rule puts a clock on it.
Under the current Head Start Program Performance Standards, a Head Start program must complete or obtain a developmental screening within 45 calendar days of when a child first attends — 30 days for programs operating 90 days or less — using research-based standardized tools (45 CFR 1302.33, administered by the Office of Head Start).
That standard belongs to Head Start programs; it does not transfer to private centers, where the places to check are your state child care licensing agency's rules and the program's own screening policy.
In the classroom, screening sits next to observation and documentation on the assessment side of the job — the daycare teacher career guide covers where it fits in the role overall.
It is also a skill worth naming when you apply and interview: a program that screens needs someone to get the questionnaires out and the results scored, and that may be the teacher — a strength to lead with when you browse daycare teacher jobs.
Current Head Start standards — a federal proposal is pending
Screening vs assessment in early childhood
The shorthand difference: a screening is a brief, standardized snapshot, and an assessment is a picture built over time.
A screener answers one question — does this child's development look on track for their age right now? — and returns a banded result rather than a narrative; ASQ-3's monitoring zone for near-cutoff results is that idea in practice.
Assessment is ongoing: the teacher observes, documents and rates what children know and can do across many days, and the results feed lesson planning.
Both sides have named tools.
On the screening side, the ASQ-3 is a parent-completed questionnaire that takes a parent 10 to 15 minutes and a professional 2 to 3 minutes to score.
On the assessment side, Teaching Strategies describes GOLD as an online observational assessment for children from birth through third grade, rated against 38 research-based objectives, with checkpoint reports that show which children are performing below, at or above widely held expectations.
California runs its own state system, the DRDP (2025), fully implemented for programs serving infants through Grade 3.
In the classroom these are two different workloads, not a naming quibble: screening arrives as an event with a deadline, assessment as a rhythm you keep all year.
Each has its own deep dive on this site — observation and assessment in early childhood covers the methods assessment is built on, and Teaching Strategies GOLD covers the assessment side's best-known tool.
Common developmental screening tools
Which screener a program uses comes from its own screening policy, inside any rules its state or funder sets.
The family of tools this page covers is the Ages and Stages Questionnaire: ASQ-3 for general development and ASQ:SE-2 for social-emotional development.
Other screening tools exist; this page sticks to the ASQ family.
The ASQ-3 is a parent-completed developmental screener for ages 1 through 66 months, covering five areas: communication, gross motor, fine motor, problem solving and personal-social.
A parent answers the questionnaire — the publisher pegs it at 10 to 15 minutes — and a professional scores it in 2 to 3 minutes.
Results that fall near the cutoff land in a monitoring zone the publisher describes as a way to make it easier to keep track of children at risk.
Its companion, ASQ:SE-2, screens social-emotional skills for ages 1 through 72 months across 9 questionnaires, and is designed to be used alongside ASQ-3 or another general developmental screener — not in place of one.
A program running both ends up with two results per child: the broad developmental screen and the focused social-emotional one.
With parent-completed tools, the hands-on work — which may fall to the teacher — is logistics and scoring: getting the right questionnaire to the right family, making the questions feel answerable, scoring what comes back, and moving the result into the program's process.
The tool has its own guide here — the Ages and Stages Questionnaire (ASQ) covers the age intervals, scoring and follow-up in detail.
When and how to refer to early intervention
A screening result is a flag, and flags have a path.
The exact route depends on your program's policy and your state, but the teacher's part of it holds steady: notice, document, hand off.
A screening result is a flag for a closer look — it starts a process, it does not end one.
Start with the result and your notes
A result below the cutoff — or in the monitoring zone next to it — is the kind of result that calls for a closer look. Pair it with concrete, dated classroom observations of what the child does and does not do, so the flag carries evidence with it.Take it to whoever coordinates screening
Find out who coordinates screening at your program — your first week is the time to ask. The teacher passes the result and the observations up with dates attached, and deciding what happens next is the program's call, made with the family.Support the family's next step
How a referral moves forward follows your program's policy, and with a parent-completed screener the family has been part of the process from the start. Your part is a clear, jargon-free account of what you observed and what the tool showed — not a label.Know what happens after a referral
For children under age three, the federal early intervention program is IDEA Part C: under Part C, an "infant or toddler with a disability" is a child under three who needs early intervention because of a developmental delay in cognitive, physical, communication, social/emotional or adaptive development, or a diagnosed condition likely to cause delay (34 CFR 303.21). Once a child is referred, Part C requires the screening, initial evaluation and assessments, and the initial IFSP meeting to be completed within 45 days — counted from the date the lead agency or early intervention service provider receives the referral — and each child and family must have one service coordinator as the single point of contact.
Two 45-day clocks, worth keeping straight: Head Start's window is 45 calendar days from a child's first day of attendance for the program's own screening, while Part C's clock runs 45 days from the referral, from the date the lead agency or early intervention service provider receives it.
One belongs to a Head Start program's own screening; the other belongs to the early intervention system.
For what the work on the other side of that handoff looks like as a career, see the early intervention career guide.
Talking to families about screening results
The conversation is where screening gets delicate, and where a teacher's wording matters most.
Lead with what you saw, not with what the score means: specific, dated examples from your classroom give a family something concrete to react to, and they travel better into a referral conversation than a band on a form does.
Keep the tool's limits in the room.
A screener is a snapshot against age expectations, and ASQ-3 builds that in: results near the cutoff land in a monitoring zone so it is easier to keep track of children at risk.
Present the result as the start of a closer look, not a conclusion about the child.
Know your program's lines before the conversation happens: who shares results with families, when, and in what words.
In a parent-completed design the family filled in the questionnaire, so they arrive knowing the tool; what they need from you is what you observed around it.
Handled that way, the screening conversation becomes the first step of the referral path instead of a verdict delivered.
Career information, not licensing or legal advice. Head Start screening rules come from the Office of Head Start's Program Performance Standards and early intervention rules from IDEA Part C; for your own setting, confirm requirements with your state child care licensing agency or the program you work for.