Assessing Play and Exploratory Behaviors of Infants and Toddlers

An instrument was designed to assess developmental levels of children birth to three years. The study instrument was divided into six scales with five developmental levels. The validation sample consisted of 15 subjects. Children from birth to 30 months were assessed with the Bayley Scales of Infant Development. Children from 30 to 36 months were assessed with the Stanford-Binet Scale. All 15 subjects were assessed with the six scales of the study instrument. Scores from the study instrument were correlated with adjusted psychometric scores with the significance level varying from .0001 to .0005. The stratified study sample consisted of 191 subjects. Interobserver agreement was calculated on 40 paired observations. Correlations for observer pairs = .99 for each scale. A Guttman scalogram analysis resequenced the scales. Coefficient of scalability, reproducibility index, reliability, and unidimensionality all met preset levels of acceptability.