Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale
The only addition made to the 2015 post was an article reference supporting the validity and reliability of the NBAS. However, research is still limited supporting the validity and reliability of the NBAS. All other data was reviewed and is up-to-date.
Evidence of Validity/Reliability: A study conducted in Turkey found that it is recommended to use the NBAS as a valid and reliable measurement tool (Tosun et al, 2014), however there is still limited evidence to suggest the validity of the NBAS.
Reference:
Tosun, O et. al. Brazelton Neonatal Behavioral Scale: a validity and reliability study in a turkey sample. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine. (2014); 15(4): 96.
Below is the summary of an article that utilized the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale.
Sagiv, S. et al. Prenatal organochlorine exposure and measures of behavior in infancy using the neonatal behavorial assessment scale (NBAS). Environmental Health Perspectives. 2008; 116(5): 666-673.
The purpose of this study was to determine if prenatal organochlorine exposure is associated with measures of attention in early infancy as found on the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). The study population included 788 mother-infant pairs that lived next to a PCB contaminated harbor, and were participating in ongoing studies of prenatal PCB and organochlorine pesticide exposure and subsequent infant and child development. The infants’ birth was between 1993 and 1998. Levels of cord serum polychlorinated biphenyls (PCB) and dichloroduphenyl dichlorothene (DDE), which are chlorinated pesticides, were collected via blood samples from the infant at birth. The NBAS was utilized twice in this study; once between the first and third days of life, and the second time between 5 and 22 days of life. The NBAS assesses the infants’ ability to respond to the environment, such as the ability to orient and habituate, the quality of motor tone and activity levels, and the infants’ level of state regulation. The focus of the current study was infant attention and eight selected behavioral items to identify the infants’ capacity for attention were analyzed. The behavioral items studied were alertness, consolability, self-quieting acitivity, hand-to-mouth facility, irritability, elicited and spontaneous activity, and motor maturity.
The results of this study showed that there was an inverse relationship between PCB and DDE cord serum levels, and attention-related NBAS outcomes including alertness, quality of alert responsiveness, and cost of attention. Inverse associations were found to be less apparent for the state and motor-associated outcomes. There was also found to be a positive association between the level of organochlorines and spontaneous activity, which includes hyperactivity-impulsivity. Strengths of this article are the number of participants that were able to provide the necessary information, and that the authors were able to compare their findings to previous research, even though some of this study’s findings did not support previous research. Limitations of this article are the verbiage used at times; it was difficult to follow what was being described, and this study only looked at the results of the NBAS in relation to the levels of PCB and DDE instead of looking at other outcomes measures to see if the various outcome measures portrayed the same findings. The overall conclusion of the current study was that evidence was found to support an association between the levels of PCB and DDE and poor attention in early infancy.
One response to “Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Fascinating! Reminds me of our discussion regarding teratogens!