An Information Processing Approach to Infant Cognitive Assessment

Abstract

There is a revolution in mental assessment under foot and it is not likely that this upheaval will be turned back. It is equally unlikely that there will be much fervor for turning back following this most recent round of scrutiny. It has been demonstrated repeatedly that tests of infant development have little or no predictive validity (e.g., Bayley, 1966; Brooks and Weinraub, 1976; Lewis, 1976; Lewis and McGurk, 1972; McCall, this volume; McCall et al., 1973; Miranda et al., 1977; Stott and Ball, 1965; Willerman and Fiedler, 1974). These researchers have argued that a child’s score on a traditional test of infant development does not predict his or her performance during adulthood or even later childhood. Because we have known about the limitations of infant tests of development since the mid-1960’s when Stott and Ball and Bayley published their often quoted critiques of infant tests, it might be asked what makes this recent clamoring any different? One answer is that since the mid-1960’s, developmental psychology has produced a methodology for the study of attention in infancy that provides the potential for a rigorous alternative to the conventional format.