Table 1.

A General Description of Neonatal Neurobehavioral Assessments

Test	General Description	Components	Age Range	Administration Time (minutes)	Scoring
The Assessment of Preterm Infants Behavior (APIB)	Observation of infant’s responses to handling & manipulation by the clinician, emphasis on newborn behavior during interaction with the environment	Autonomic movement, motor activity, state, self-regulation, attention, interaction	28 weeks postmenstru al age to 1 month	30 – 60	Unstandardized; 6 main system scores derived from 81 scores; 3 status scores available for 4 of the systems: Baseline, Response, Post-Intervention; percentile used for clinical cut-offs
Neurobehavioral Assessment of the Preterm Infant (NAPI)	Observation of preterm infant’s responses to handling & manipulation by the clinician, assessing the functional maturity of preterm infants. Limited to medically stable preterm infants	Autonomic movement, reflexes, motor vigor, state attention, irritability	32-weeks postmenstru al age to term age	30	Standardized; 7 clusters assessed using 41 items; item scores, observational state ratings & summary ratings (least mature’ to ‘most mature’) available, centiles used for age-norms
Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS)	Observation of infant’ responses to handling & manipulation by the clinician to identify functional impairment & predict outcomes	Autonomic movement, reflexes, motor activity, state, attention/interaction capabilities	36 weeks postmenstru al age to 6 weeks	None specified, usually around 30	Unstandardized; 6 domains; 46 items & 7 supplementary items
Newborn Behavioral Observations system (NBO)	Nursing intervention, structured observations assessing infant competencies/vulnerabilities in the context of parent-infant dyad after care-giving sessions, encourages parent education & active caregiving	Motor tone, sensory capacities (visual & auditory), activity, habituation, self-regulation (crying & consolability), response to stress, interaction capabilities	Term to 3 months	20 – 30	Unstandardized; 18 items; additional post-intervention interview used to assess caregiver perceptions of the NBO as a learning tool
NICU Network Neurobehavioral Scale (NNNS)	Observation of infant’s responses to handling & manipulation by the clinician, identifies functional impairments in preterm & at-risk term infants	Tone, reflexes, behavior, stress/abstinence signs	30 weeks postmenstru al age to 4 months	<30	Standardized; 45 items administered in 12 packages; item scores range 1–11; items can also be clustered into 13 domain summary scores; 7 stress packages available; stress items scored ‘yes’/’no’