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-emotion al problems and competencies on the Infant-Toddler Social Emotional Assessm ent (ITSEA), a new adult informant instrument, with observational measures of attachment status, task mastery, emotion regulation, and coping behavior s. 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 wer e associated with observational measures of task mastery, emotion regulatio n, coping behaviors, and some dimensional ratings of attachment behaviors. In addition, ITSEA scales were associated with all dimensional ratings of a ttachment behaviors and with categorical classifications of attachment. Mor eover, controlling for the contribution of maternal ratings of temperament on the IBQ, ITSEA problem and competency scales contributed uniquely to obs ervational 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 coher ent descriptions of their very young infants problem behaviors and competen cies and offers concurrent observational validation of this promising new i nstrument.