Almost all
of the assessment items were taken from
the previous work of Thomas et al,9
Brazelton,12
and Dubowitz and Dubowitz.13
Other items, such as slip-through
at the shoulders, were added to include
areas of function not addressed in other
assessment scales. Several traditional assessment
items were eliminated because
they were either redundant or inappropriate
when applied to a premature infant.
For example, both heel-to-ear and
popliteal angles are measures of hip and
lower extremity tone, so only popliteal
angle was included on the NNE