Child Temperament
The Early Childhood Behavior Questionnaire Short Form - 107 (ECBQ-107). The ECBQ-107 assesses temperament in toddlers ages one to three (Putnam, Garstein & Rothbart, 2006). Two subscales from the short version of the ECBQ (Putnam, Jacobs, Gartstein, & Rothbart, 2010) that load onto the factors fear (8 items) and frustration (6 items) were employed to assess temperament. Parents reported the frequency of their child’s fear and frustration over the past two weeks on a Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (never) to 7 (always). Scores were calculated as mean scores for all items applicable to the child. Examples of ECBQ questions in the fear and frustration subscales used in the study include “During every day activities, how often did your child seem frightened for no apparent reason?” and “When told that it was time for bed or a nap, how often did your child get irritable?” respectively. The ECBQ-107 shows high internal consistency for fear and frustration (α = .73 for each) and concurrent validity with the standard ECBQ (r= .73 and .75, respectively) (Putnam et al., 2010).
The Child Behavior Questionnaire – Short Form (CBQ Short Form). CBQ is a parent-report questionnaire that measures temperament in young children (Rothbart, Ahadi, Hersey & Fisher, 2001). The CBQ Short Form contains 94 items across 15 subscales (Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Parents are asked to rate their observations of their children in the past six months on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (“extremely untrue of your child”) to 7 (“extremely true of your child”); they are also provided with a “not applicable” response for situations they have not observed their child in. The current study used the Anger/Frustration and Fear subscales of the CBQ Short Form, containing six items each. Examples of items from both scales respectively include, “Gets angry when s/he can’t find something s/he wants to play with” and “Is afraid of loud noises.”. The subscales presented adequate internal consistency (α = .69 - .78 & α = .54 - .60 respectively; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006). Both subscales showed high correlations with the standard form CBQ (r = .75 & .69 respectively; Putnam & Rothbart, 2006) and were found to be valid and reliable measures of temperament in pre-school years (de la Osa, Granero, Penelo, Domènech, & Ezpeleta, 2013).