Abstract

This paper presents a non-systematic review of psychological assessment tools for infants and toddlers, focusing on the evaluation of parent-child relationships. Parent-child interactions play a crucial role in the emotional stability, social skills, and cognitive development of infants and toddlers. To assess these interactions, various tools have been developed and categorized into three primary approaches: parent interviews, self-report questionnaires, and observation-based methods. Parent interviews offer in-depth insights, but require significant time and expertise. Self-report questionnaires are efficient and accessible, but face limitations such as response bias and subjective interpretation. Observation-based tools objectively evaluate the qualitative aspects of interactions but are resource-intensive and must account for cultural contexts. Because most existing tools have been developed in the Western context, there is a pressing need to adapt and standardize them for the Korean cultural environment. This paper emphasizes the importance of integrating the strengths of different assessment approaches into a multidimensional framework that can help identify issues in early-childhood relationships, and provides a foundation for effective intervention strategies.