Page Last Updated: September 19, 2025
Infant Behavior Questionnaire-R (VSF)+BIđź”—
mh_cg_ibqrThe IBQ-R (VSF)+BI assesses normative variations in child behavior and should be interpreted within the context of the child's age and developmental stage. This is not clinical or diagnostic instrument.
Administration & Quality Controlđź”—
| Child Specific | Yes |
| Respondent | Primary caregiver |
| Administration | Self-administered remotely |
| Visits | V03, V05 (Validated for ages 3 months 0 days to 17 months 30 days for HBCD) |
| Completion Time | 7-10 min |
| Quality Control | QC procedures involved examination of missingness (by counting the number of items answered for each participant) and age to ensure that it falls within the expected range of 3-18 months. Summary statistics and visualizations were generated to review item-level frequencies, age, and scores (calculated with application of prorated scoring to account for missing data). Finally, Cronbach's Alpha was calculated to assess reliability. |
Instrument Detailsđź”—
The IBQ-R (VSF)+BI is a caregiver report form used to assess temperamental reactivity and regulation in infancy, focusing on key traits that influence development and behavior during the early years. It is adapted from the well-validated IBQ-R Very Short Form with additional items reflecting Behavioral Inhibition from the long form of the IBQ-R.
In addition to the overall Surgency, Negative Affect and Effortful Control scales derived from the validated IBQ-R-VSF, the HBCD Workgroup and measure experts added a Behavior Inhibition (or Social Fear) scale using items from the long form of the IBQ-R (IBQ-R-LF). The HBCD measure therefore consists of 4 scale domains: surgency/extraversion (13 items), negative affectivity (12 items), effortful control (12 items), and behavioral inhibition (13 items).
Alterations were made to replace “parent” with “parent/caregiver” where appropriate. Because the psychometric validation for these measures was done using items from the original measures, future publications should account for and note edits made to individual items.
Caregivers are asked to report on the infant’s behaviors on a 7-point Likert scale: 1 [Never], 2 [Very rarely], 3 [Less than half the time], 4 [About half the time], 5 [More than half the time], 6 [Almost always], 7 [Always].
Scale scores, generated for each domain, are the mean score of all scale items applicable to the child as judged by the caregiver. Importantly, this calculation only includes items with scores of 1 through 7: items where the caregiver selects "does not apply" or “choose not to respond" receive no numerical score and are not included in the total number of items for the scale. Items with an “R” are reverse-scored and already implemented in the HBCD scoring algorithm.
For additional information, please see the data dictionary for details on items and scales as well as Mary Rothbart's Temperament Questionnaires.
Referencesđź”—
Gartstein, M. A., & Rothbart, M. K. (2003). Studying infant temperament via the Revised Infant Behavior Questionnaire. Infant Behavior & Development, 26(1), 64–86. https://doi.org/10.1016/s0163-6383(02)00169-8
Putnam, S. P., Helbig, A. L., Gartstein, M. A., Rothbart, M. K., & Leerkes, E. (2014). Development and assessment of short and very short forms of the infant behavior questionnaire-revised. Journal of Personapty Assessment, 96(4), 445–458. https://doi.org/10.1080/00223891.2013.841171
Rothbart, M. K. (1981). Measurement of temperament in infancy. Child Development, 52(2), 569–578. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.1981.tb03082.x