Assessment Early Years

Assessment in the Early Years

Dr. A. Bakshi

Brazelton Neonatal Assessment Scale (BNAS)

* Individual test

* For infants between 3 days and 8 weeks of age

* Index of a newborn’s competence

* Developed in 1973 by a Howard pediatrician, Dr. T. Berry Brazelton and his colleagues.

* Produces 47 scores: 27 behavioral items and 20 elicited responses

BNAS: Special Contributions

* When the Scale was published in the early 1970s, people were just beginning to appreciate the infant's full breadth of capabilities, and the only tests available were designed to detect abnormalities.

* The Scale was designed to go beyond available assessments by revealing the infant's strengths and range of individuality, while still providing a health screen.

BNAS: Key Assumptions

* First, infants, even ones that seem vulnerable, are highly capable when they are born. "A newborn already has nine months of experience when she is born," Dr. Brazelton notes. "She is capable of controlling her behavior in order to respond to her new environment."

* Second, babies "communicate" through their behavior, which, although it may not always seem like it, is a rational language. “While babies may not speak their first word for a year, they are born ready to communicate with a rich vocabulary of body movements, cries and visual responses: all part of the complex language of infant behavior”.

Not only do infants respond to cues around them, like their parents' faces, but they also take steps to control their environment, such as crying to get a response from their caregivers.

* Third, infants are social organisms, individuals with their own unique qualities, ready to shape as well as be shaped by the caregiving environment.

BNAS: Areas represented by Scores

* Neurological functioning

* Social functioning

* Behavioral functioning

These include:

* Reflexes

* Responses to stress

* Startle reactions

* Cuddliness

* Motor...