The Infant-Toddler Social and Emotional Assessment (ITSEA): Comparing parent ratings to laboratory observations of task mastery, emotion regulation, coping behaviors, and attachment status

This paper examines associations between maternal ratings of social-emotional problems and competencies on the Infant-Toddler Social Emotional Assessment (ITSEA), a new adult informant instrument, with observational measures of attachment status, task mastery, emotion regulation, and coping behaviors. In addition, associations between maternal ratings on the ITSEA and the Infant Behavior Questionnaire (IBQ), a widely used temperament rating scale, are compared. Consistent with our expectations, the ITSEA and the IBQ were associated with observational measures of task mastery, emotion regulation, coping behaviors, and some dimensional ratings of attachment behaviors. In addition, ITSEA scales were associated with all dimensional ratings of attachment behaviors and with categorical classifications of attachment. Moreover, controlling for the contribution of maternal ratings of temperament on the IBQ, ITSEA problem and competency scales contributed uniquely to observational measures of emotion regulation, coping behaviors, task mastery, and attachment. That associations were observed in a low risk sample of 91 12-month-old infants and mothers, highlights that parents can provide coherent descriptions of their very young infants problem behaviors and competencies and offers concurrent observational validation of this promising new instrument.