Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS)
Updated Information
All previous information has been reviewed and is up to date. There continues to be limited research on the psychometric characteristics of this outcome measure, including validity, reliability, and standardized norms.
Article Summary
Article Title: The Relationship between Motor Function and Behavioral Function in Infants with Low Birth Weight
Purpose: To evaluate the relationship between the scores of behavioral assessments and motor function assessments in infants with low birth weight.
Population: Study included 50 infants (30 male: 20 female) with low birth weight born at Shahid Akbar Abadi Hospital, Tehran, Iran. 52% were in the neonatal intensive care center within the hospital and 48% were ambulatory patients of the adjoining pediatric clinic. All infants included in the study had parental consent, a corrected age of less than 2 months, were born at no less than 36 weeks of gestation, had birth weights between 1500 and 2499 grams, and had no co-existing disabilities.
Methods: Used the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) and Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS). For each participant in the study one test was randomly selected and administered, with the other test being administered subsequently after a brief interval. Descriptive statistics were run to show population distributions. Statistical analysis of the data was done in order to determine correlations between the scores of the two tests.
Outcome measures: A demographic questionnaire was filled out via medical records. Researches used the Test of Infant Motor Performance (TIMP) and the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS).
Results/discussion: Strong statistical correlation between scoring on 15 out of 18 sections on the NBAS and TIMP. The 3 sections that demonstrated no significant correlation were:
- No statistical significance was found between the NBAS habituation section and the TIMP observation of the movement test (P: 0.77, β: 0.06) or TIMP motor elicited test (P: 0.06, β: 3.02). This could have been due to the difference in testing procedures between the two tests; in the NBAS the testing is ceased in contrast to the TIMP in which infants are calmed and the testing is resumed.
- No significant relationship was found between autonomous systems when it came to the observation section of the TIMP (P: 0.06, β: 1.62), but there was a significant correlated to the motor elicited section of the TIMP (β: 0.002) indicating that the NBAS could be used to predict scoring of this section.
Major strengths
- Ease of implementation
- The focus on minimizing stress in high-risk infants
Major limitations
- While there are norms associated with the TIMP, there is limited normative values, reliability, and validity known for the NBAS.
- Study did not include infants who had co-existing disabilities, which could potentially impact its generalizability.
- Unclear who administered the tests and if they were done by trained individuals.
Conclusion: This study provides evidence that demonstrates strong positive correlations between most scores of the TIMP and NBAS. These results indicate a potential for the NBAS to be used to determine TIMP scores and minimize some of the testing stresses placed on infants.
Reference:
AMINI M, ALIABADI F, ALIZADE M, KALANI M, QORBANI M. The Relationship between Motor Function and Behavioral Function in Infants with Low Birth Weight. Iranian Journal of Child Neurology. 2016;10(4):49-55.
3 responses to “Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS)”
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Hi Lindsey, interesting article. I think it is interesting that they randomly selected a measure to administer and then waited an undisclosed period of time and administered the second one. Did they give any specific reasoning to why they performed the testing this way?
Hi Maggie, unfortunately I do not know the researchers exact reasoning for this administration tactic as they did not elaborate on this detail in their article. I would imagine by doing the randomized selection for the first test they were attempting to control for any potential of one test to influence the outcome of the other. When it comes to the delay between tests, this too may have been an attempt to minimize interference of the two tests on each other. Again, I cannot respond with a definite answer because justification was not explicitly reported within the article. Hope that helps!
Hey Lindsey! Very nice job on your article summary. I thought it was interesting in that the article seemed to successfully show how two different outcome measures could be used to predict the other. This makes me think that if it could be done with such a young population like infants, that it could potentially be done with the adult population. This could give PTs a better idea of what needs to be addressed in future PT sessions and potentially save time by only administering one outcome measure and using it to predict aspects of another.
Also, I would imagine that administering two tests back to back to an infant could potentially be a lot for an infant to handle (possibly skewing the outcomes). Even with this possible negative connotation, the results of the article were favorable and showed good correlation. Very interesting!