Assessment of temperament at 13 and 24 months using maternal report: validation of the Portuguese version of infant characteristics questionnaire

Abstract

According to Bates (1989), the concept of temperament is applied when we refer to children, adolescents or adults, especially when we want to know more about a person’s activity, mood or emotional responses. Thus, temperament is a set of individual traits, with biological origins, present from early childhood, showing some kind of continuity over time. Assuming that the assessment of temperament is informative of a child’s functioning, it isrelevantto have valid instruments to collect this kind of data. The studies presented in this paper are part of a broader research project that aims to understand the development of children aged from 0 to 60 months. More specifically, the two studies generally aim to validate the Infant Characteristics Questionnaire (ICQ1) for 13 and 24 months of age for the Portuguese population, using mothers as informants. The first sample consisted of 289 infants aged between 11 and 20 months (Study 1) and the second sample comprised 398 children aged between 21 and 32 months (Study 2). Data from the two samples wascollected in nurseries andday-careservicesin northernPortugal(conveniencesamples).Duringdatacollection,inaddition to completing the ICQ, mothers were asked to complete a questionnaire with demographic information about themselves, their child and their pregnancy. The specific goals of this study were to evaluate the psychometric properties - construct validity and internal consistency - of the two versions of this instrument. Results from both studies show that factorial solutions were both appropriate for these versions of ICQ for13 months and for 24 months. In addition, levels of internal consistency of the dimensions obtained are generally adequate.