Cultural adaptation of a parent completed social emotional screening instrument for young children: Ages and stages questionnaire-social emotional

A major barrier to the identification and treatment of social and emotional problems in young children is the lack of psychometrically sound, low-cost, culturally and linguistically appropriate assessments, especially for the preschool population. While some screening instruments have been developed in the United States, very little or no interest in this area has materialized in Korea. One possible solution is an adaptation of an existing tool from the U.S. for use with Korean families. The present study investigated a Korean translation of the Ages and Stages Questionnaires: Social Emotional (ASQ:SE) by examining the appropriateness of the translation as well as its reliability and validity when studied with a large sample of Korean young children and their parents. Overall, findings were positive. Internal consistency for the Korean-translated ASQ:SE was strong, with an overall alpha of .68, ranging from .56 to .77. Test–retest reliability was .84 between ASQ:SE questionnaires completed by parents at successive time periods. Overall agreement of two questionnaire classifications (i.e., at risk, OK) completed by parents within one to four weeks was 94. Validity results, which were used to establish cutoff points and measure convergent validity, were also adequate. Further research on validity and reliability of the Korean ASQ:SE with a larger, more diverse sample is needed.