Mother's assessments of term and pre-term infants with respiratory distress syndrome: reliability and predictive validity.

Assessments of term and preterm RDS infants were made by mothers on an adaptation of the Brazelton scale. The mother's assessments were not significantly different from those assessments made by trained clinicians, and both mothers and clinicians assigned less optimal ratings to the preterm infants. These ratings were correlated with Bayley motor scores at eight months. Mothers' assessments of infant temperament were made at four and eight months. These temperament ratings were significantly correlated with each other and with clinicians' ratings on the Brazelton neonatal and eight-month-Bayley Scales. These findings suggest that mothers' assessments are reliable and have some predictive validity during early infancy.