Assessment of Behavioral and Emotional Problems in Infancy: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Behavioral and emotional problems are highly prevalent in early childhood and represent an important focus of practice for clinical child and pediatric psychologists. Although psychological or psychiatric disorders are not typically diagnosed in children under the age of 2 years, recent research has demonstrated the appropriateness of assessing behavioral and emotional problems during the first 2 years of life (defined throughout as “infancy”). The current paper provides a systematic review of assessment procedures used to identify behavioral and emotional problems during infancy. Existing assessment procedures for infants take the form of parent- or caregiver-report questionnaires, observational coding procedures, and diagnostic classification systems. The questionnaires and observational coding procedures both had substantial psychometric evidence for use with infants, although observational coding may have limited utility in clinical practice. The classification systems have less empirical support for use with infants, and further research is necessary to demonstrate the appropriateness of these procedures with infants. Utilizing the reviewed procedures to assess behavioral and emotional problems in infants can have a substantial impact in research and practice settings, and further research is needed to determine the usefulness of these procedures in developing, testing, and implementing preventive and early intervention programs for infants and their families.

Home-Based Preventive Parenting Intervention for at-Risk Infants and Their Families: An Open Trial

“…Similar to other evidence-based interventions, however, children from low-income families and with other risk factors are less likely to complete and benefit from PCIT (Fernandez & Eyberg, 2009; Werba, Eyberg, Boggs, & Algina, 2006). Identification of behavior problems during infancy, before coercive parent-child interactions become more entrenched, is feasible (Bagner, Rodríguez, Blake, Linares, & Carter, 2012) and would likely require a less intensive and shorter intervention with a prevention framework. Targeting infants from high-risk families (i.e., low income) and who display symptoms predicting later onset of a disorder (but not currently diagnosed) is consistent with an indicated preventive intervention (Muñoz, Mrazek, & Haggerty, 1996), which would involve a shorter time commitment for families compared to later treatment of the disorder.…”

Parent Training and Skill Acquisition and Utilization Among Spanish- and English-Speaking Latino Families

“…In order to address the high prevalence of these psychological problems, particularly among high-risk children and their families, research has highlighted the importance of early assessment and intervention to increase access to and reduce burden of existing evidence-based treatments (Bagner et al 2012). There has been substantial research demonstrating the efficacy of several evidence-based parent-training interventions to treat early behavior problems, including Parent-Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT; Blizzard et al 2017b; Zisser and Eyberg 2010), Helping the Noncompliant Child (McMahon and Forehand 2003), the Positive Parenting Program (Triple P; Sanders et al 2003), Incredible Years (Webster-Stratton and Reid 2010), and Parent Management Training-Oregon model (PMTO; Patterson 2005).…”

Preschool and Kindergarten Behavior Scales - Second Edition (PKBS-2): adaptação e estudos psicométricos da versão portuguesa

“…O aumento da atenção nesta área, por parte da psicologia do desenvolvimento e psicopatologia da criança, teve um impacto crucial na compreensão de que certos problemas de comportamento precoces predizem o funcionamento futuro (Bagner et al, 2012;Beg et al, 2007;Campbell, Shaw, & Gilliom, 2000). Acresce que a importância de dar atenção especial aos pré-escolares com problemas de comportamento é ainda justifi cada atendendo ao facto de as intervenções nestas idades poderem ser mais efi cazes do que na população escolar, em virtude de os comportamentos disruptivos (ou de outra natureza) estarem menos estabelecidos, sendo que é também neste período desenvolvimental que emerge o controlo comportamental (Bagner et al, 2012;Beg et al, 2007;Breitenstein et al, 2009).…”

“…Acresce que a importância de dar atenção especial aos pré-escolares com problemas de comportamento é ainda justifi cada atendendo ao facto de as intervenções nestas idades poderem ser mais efi cazes do que na população escolar, em virtude de os comportamentos disruptivos (ou de outra natureza) estarem menos estabelecidos, sendo que é também neste período desenvolvimental que emerge o controlo comportamental (Bagner et al, 2012;Beg et al, 2007;Breitenstein et al, 2009).…”