FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Amy Perkins Clause, Brookes Publishing
410-337-9580 x128; aclause@brookespublishing.com
ASQ DEVELOPER JANE SQUIRES RECEIVES DEC’S 2017 MARY McEVOY SERVICE TO THE FIELD AWARD
Baltimore, Maryland –October 3, 2017 – Jane Squires, Ph.D., has been named the winner of the 2017 Mary McEvoy Service to the Field Award, conferred by the Division for Early Childhood of the Council for Exceptional Children (DEC). Dr. Squires is a professor of early intervention/special education at the University of Oregon and a Brookes Publishing author best known as co-developer of the Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQ®).
Awarded in memory of Mary McEvoy, a leader in the field of early childhood special education (ECSE), the Service to the Field Award is given annually to a DEC member who has mirrored and built on the spirit of McEvoy’s work. Through decades of groundbreaking research in the areas of screening, assessment, and early identification of developmental delays, Dr. Squires has made significant national and international contributions to ECSE, most prominently as a driving force behind the renowned ASQ screener.
Since 1995, when Brookes published the first edition of ASQ by Dr. Squires and Dr. Diane Bricker, it has become one of the most trusted and widely used developmental screeners in the world. ASQ is used in all 50 states to catch potential delays early, and the screening questionnaires have been translated into more than 70 languages and dialects and used in studies on nearly every continent. Fueled by Dr. Squires’ vision, research, and dedication, the ASQ product family has expanded to include many other components that help give children the best start in life, including a dedicated social-emotional screener (ASQ:SE), learning activities, and training videos. Dr. Squires also partnered with Brookes on the web-based screening and management system ASQ Online, which facilitated more widespread use of ASQ by diverse families. Since the debut of ASQ Online in 2009, more than a million screenings have been completed through the web-based system alone.
ASQ’s global impact has been demonstrated through two international ASQ symposia, hosted by Dr. Squires and Dr. Bricker with Brookes Publishing. Each symposium gathered 50 or more researchers from 18-20 countries to present their research on ASQ, discuss implementation practices, confer about cultural adaptations, and exchange ideas for enhancing universal screening and support for families and children. More international symposia are planned, and Dr. Squires continues to travel the world to help others implement screening.
In addition to improving young lives across the globe through her work on ASQ, Dr. Squires has had a powerful impact as a researcher, writer, and leader in the field of ECSE. She has served as principal investigator on numerous research studies and has recently published articles on early identification of social-emotional difficulties in preschool children, personnel training, and drug-exposed infants. She and her team operate the Oregon Screening Project, which provides developmental screening to all children ages birth–5 in Oregon. Dr. Squires is currently leading a research team in developing a social-emotional curriculum for infants and toddlers and their families and caregivers.
“The success and quality of the ASQ are largely due to Jane’s stewardship,” says Dr. Diane Bricker, who has known and worked with Dr. Squires for more than 30 years. “Beyond continued improvement of the ASQ has been her dedication to building comprehensive developmental screening systems. She has traveled border-to-border in this country and worldwide to help create early detection systems that improve the lives of children and their families. [This award] is a well-deserved acknowledgment of these important contributions.”
Brookes Publishing Executive Vice President Melissa Behm, who has worked closely with Dr. Squires and her colleagues on ASQ, says: “It has been Jane’s dream that ASQ and ASQ:SE enable universal screening in flexible, community-based, multidisciplinary systems. The ultimate goals are to assist in early identification and timely entry into specialized services, as well as to help families celebrate developmental milestones. We at Brookes are proud to support her in these goals and believe she has achieved them admirably.”
DEC will honor all the recipients of this year’s awards at their 2017 Conference Awards Breakfast, held on Friday, October 6, at DEC’s 33rd Annual International Conference on Young Children with Special Needs and their Families in Portland, Oregon. In their formal announcement of the winners, DEC stated: “We look forward to honoring our recipients for their commitment to young children with special needs, to families, to fellow early intervention/early childhood special education professionals, and to the DEC community.”
About Brookes Publishing Co. and Ages & Stages Questionnaires® (ASQ®)
For nearly 40 years, Brookes Publishing Co. has been a leading provider of professional resources and assessments in early childhood, literacy, and special education. An independent company, Brookes Publishing is headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. For more information, please visit www.brookespublishing.com.
The Ages & Stages Questionnaires® have been trusted by early childhood professionals for 22 years as the most accurate, cost-effective, and parent-friendly way to screen children from one month to 6 years for developmental and social-emotional delays. ASQ-3 and ASQ:SE-2 were developed by early childhood experts Diane Bricker, Ph.D., and Jane Squires, Ph.D., and their research colleagues. The tools have been used to reliably screen millions of children around the world. For more information about ASQ, please visit www.agesandstages.com.
For inquiries, please contact Amy Perkins Clause, Brookes Publishing, at 410-337-9580 x128 or aclause@brookespublishing.com.
