Infant Assessment

Infancy is one of the most fascinating periods in the human life cycle. In two short years, infants become thinking, speaking, social beings. As this book explains, over the past three decades, researchers and clinicians have developed an array of assessment methods for measuring infant development and diagnosing infants with developmental delays.The field of infant assessment has broadened from a major focus on cognitive development to an emphasis on parent-infant interaction, play assessment, and newer strategies that involve naturalistic observations. Because of the need to look at the whole infant, assessment often involves multiple disciplines. The interdisciplinary approach measures the infant domains of motor skills, cognitive abilities, and language acquisition and evaluates the infant's psychosocial environment.The chapters in this volume provide a solid overview of the current trends in infant assessment measures and procedures. The book can be used in undergraduate and graduate infant development courses and for advanced courses in infant assessment.

M. Virginia Wyly is professor of psychology at the State University College at Buffalo. Currently project director of the NICU Training Project, she is also the coauthor of Stress and Coping in the NICU and author of the text Developmental Interventions for Premature Infants and Their Families.