DEVELOPMENT OF THE QUESTIONNAIRE EVALUATI NG TEMPERAMENT IN NEWBORN CHILDREN

Authors present theoretical approaches to the temperament in sucklings and new-born children on which the development of their questionnaire was based. Even for early age, temperament is understood as a psychol ogical construct that can be observed in new-born children in the form of precursors at psychobiological level of behaviour in other pattern s of behaviour than in adults. They assume that - if really temperamen t is being concerned - it will be possible to differentiate four class ical types of temperament, or tendencies, to introversion or extrovers ion and to stability or lability, similarly to the case of adults. The questionnaire of temperament in newborn child (DNT) of the mother-rep ort type was constructed in such a way that its items can describe not only problems, but also positive forms of the new-born child's behavi our with which mother can have experience. It was set up as a loose pa rt of Prague Descriptive Method evaluating the behaviour of new-born c hildren and it was evaluated together with it by repeated measurement. DNT has got 17 items, in detail verbalised five-point scale, and two dimensions: reactivity to the world and self-regulation; these are und erstood as first signs of extroversion or introversion, and stability or lability.