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The Brief Report: Using the revised NBAS (NBAS-R) to examine the relationship between newborn behavior and temperament categories at four months of age By J. Kevin Nugent, Children's Hospital, Boston, Harvard Medical School and University of Massachusetts at Amherst; Nancy Snidman and Jerome Kagan, Dept of Psychology, Harvard University; Mei-Chiung Shih and S. Ming, Children's Hospital, Boston and Harvard School of Public Health; Cecilia Matson, Simona Bujoreanu, Jennifer Gillette, Children's Hospital, Boston
Seventy-two Caucasian healthy full-term newborns were evaluated between 24-72 hours after birth, with measures of Irritability, Self-Consoling and Examiner Consolability, derived from the revised Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS-R). Fifty-seven of the newborns (30 males) returned to the laboratory at four months, for a behavioral temperament assessment. Three temperament categories were derived from the assessment: High Reactive (high cry-high motor), Low Reactive (low cry-low motor) and Other (high cry-low motor and low cry-high motor). At one and four months, mothers filled out the Behavioral Observation Questionnaire (BOQ), a measure of cry and motor activity. Results showed that 78% of those infants classified as High Reactive at four months were classified as High Irritability in the newborn period compared to 33% of the Low Reactives (Fisher's exact =0.02) or 33% of those infants classified as Other (Fisher's exact =0.02). There was no relation between Examiner Consolability on the NBAS-R and four-month temperament categories. There was no relation between newborn irritability and consolability scores with BOQ scores at one or 4 months. These results imply a relation between behavioral profiles during the newborn period and temperamental categories at four months, based on observed behaviors, but no relation between newborn and 4 month behavior based on mother report. This study supports the further use and development of the NBAS-R as an objective measure of newborn behavior.
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In a study of the relation between newborn behavior and infant temperament at four months of age, we used a revised version of the NBAS, the NBAS-R to measure newborn behavior. The NBAS-R, which takes between 15 and 20 minutes to administer, uses standard administration and scoring procedures for several variables including Crying and Consoling behaviors, which were the focus of this study. While "best performance" criteria guided the administration, the standardized presentation of stimuli was developed so that there would be less chance for human variation than in the classic NBAS, providing a more objective set of direct observations of newborn behavior.
