Table 2 Description of GAIRS checklist areas

1. Basic behaviors area

 Evaluates the prerequisite behaviors for learning and communication, they are: spontaneous eye contact, eye contact on request, looking at objects, tracking objects and faces, functional gestures, cooperation with simple spoken requests (reply to their name, look for mother), sitting long enough to complete a task, object permanence, be able to wait for their turn before starting an activity, be able to communicate basic needs (need to eat, drink, sleep, play, walk, go to the bathroom, and feel good or bad)

2. Neuropsychological area

 Evaluates brain-based skills which are needed in acquisition of knowledge, manipulation of information, and reasoning. They have more to do with the mechanisms of how people learn, remember, problem-solve, and pay attention, rather than with actual knowledge. This area includes selective attention, types and intensity of stereotypes, lateralization, temporal orientation, spatial orientation, memory span, logical sequences, categorization (animals, dress, foods, drinks, objects, places, actions)

3. Basic cognitive area

 Evaluates the basic cognitive concepts that allow the understanding of reality (spatial concepts, topological concepts, etc.). This area includes object recognition, color discrimination, geometric form discrimination measure concepts, spatial concepts, human body discriminations, time concepts, cause-effect relationship

4. Advanced cognitive area

 Evaluates the concepts of school learning that include the sub-areas of writing and mathematics. This area includes global words recognition, syllables recognition, recompleting words through syllables, alphabetic symbols recognition, recompleting words with alphabetic symbols, recognition of words representing actions, using words to communicate, math pre-requisite concepts, recognition of numbers, biunivocal relation between number and quantity

5. Communication area

 Evaluates the development of language by measuring responses to environmental sounds and speech, as well as the production of sounds and words. The skills of communication, comprehension and expression that allow the person to interact with others. This area includes expressing a basic need at a corporal level, recognizing, and expressing a basic need through pictures, recognizing and expressing a basic need through word, understanding the biunivocal relation of a basic need between a picture and the word that expresses it, verbal comprehension, verbal production

6. Emotional area

 Evaluates the person’s abilities and ways of experiencing, expressing, and understanding their own emotions and those of others are analyzed. This area includes identify emotions and express emotions

7. Hand motor area

 Evaluates the ability to make movements using the small muscles in our hands and wrists. Kids rely on these skills to do key tasks in school and in everyday life. Fine motor skills are complex, however. They involve the coordinated efforts of the brain and muscles, and they are built on the gross motor skills that allow us to make bigger movements. This area includes musculoskeletal alterations, hand–eye coordination during motor tasks lateralization, reaching movement, touching ability, grasping ability, releasing movement, repositioning movement, bimanual coordination, ability to push and pull an object

8. Graphomotor area

 Evaluates the fine motor skills incorporating, among others, graphomotor skills (GS) which, in turn, involve strength and control of the finger muscles, and incorporates important daily skills such as writing and drawing, necessary for the academic achievement of all students. This area includes grasping of pencil, drawing patterns and use of school tools

9. Global motor area

 Evaluates the gross-motor skills which are important for an upright posture, walking, running, and climbing. It allows for the observation of physical weakness or disability or defects of movement. This area includes: standing, sitting, parachute reactions, rolling supine—on one side, rolling supine—prone, supine—to seated on the floor, seated on the floor—to standing, seated on a chair—to standing, standing—to seated on the floor, standing—to seated on a chair, walking, body spatial orientation in standing, stepping, running, climbing upstairs, descending stairs, jumping, picking up an object from the ground (small ball), playing with a ball and walking on a slope

10. Autonomy in daily life area

 Measures early adaptive and self-help behavior typically seen at home, as well as social behavior that develops through early adult–child interactions; therefore, this area analyses the level of autonomy in the praxis of daily life This area includes daily autonomy such as, eating, drinking, coughing or difficulty breathing during meal, type of food’s consistence, washing, autonomy in the bathroom and dressing, and other skills such as, playing and socialization skills and advanced autonomy activities