The Massie-Campbell Scale of Mother-Infant Attachment During Stress ADS Scale

Henry Massie, M.D. and B. Kay Campbell, Ph.D.

Originally published in Frontiers of Infant Psychiatry, eds. J. Call, E. Galenson, & R. Tyson, Basic Books, New York, 1984, the ADS Scale is now hosted by the Alliance for the Advancement of Infant Mental Health, a worldwide organization.

The ADS Scale is a one-page tool for quickly assessing parent and child interaction in the first years of life in mildly stressful situations (such as well baby pediatric examinations, leave taking and reunions at day care, and bathing and drying off). Focusing on parent-child mutual eye gaze, facial expression of emotion, vocalizations, parent holding the infant, infant molding to the parent, and physical closeness versus distance, the scale screens for troubled parent-child behavior. Lack of child responsiveness or avoidance of the parent may foretell autism, at one extreme, or less serious developmental problems. Troubled parent responsiveness may indicate parental depression, for example, or in extreme instances impending abusive behavior. The ADS Scale is available in English, Spanish, French, Polish, and Italian for use by clinicians, childcare workers, and public health departments to detect and guide therapeutic intervention for infants and toddlers with early maturational problems.