NDC focuses on clinical repair and 'growing joy in early life'

Unlike early intervention programs derived from social communication models, NDC does not instruct parents to avoid intrusiveness or directiveness, which may inadvertently communicate assumptions of parental incompetence and may also increase parental anxiety.

Similarly, NDC also does not employ tools such as the Neonatal Observation Scale to teach parents about their infant’s behavioral repertoire and communication competence in the first six months of life.112

NDC does, however, aim to address the barriers to enjoyable parent-infant communication, by offering effective, evidence-based strategies for helping with feeding or breastfeeding problems, crying and fussing, sleep concerns, an infant's sensory motor needs, and supporting parent emotional wellbeing and mental health.

NDC assumes parental competence

Instead, NDC educates parents about the benefits of reciprocity chains, and encourages enjoyment of the baby. NDC proposes that parental competence and evolutionary drive for enjoyment of the baby will emerge in families once disruptive sociocultural and clinical advice are removed, underlying clinical problems are identified and repaired, and the importance of satisfying and socially engaged days outside the home explained.

NDC confidence in parental competence is corroborated by a study of 864 parent-newborn pairs observed spending time together as the baby lay close to the parent. Parents were given minimal instructions, but asked to interact with the baby comfortably, as they saw fit. Most of the 480 full-term newborns showed subtle affect-driven initiation of arm movements towards the parents as they interacted, though this was somewhat reduced in the prematurely-born infants, and all parents engaged in quiet and supportive interaction without being intrusive.62

References

112. Nugent JK. The competent newborn and the neonatal behavioral assessment scale: T. Berry Brazelton's legacy. Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Nursing. 2013;26:173-179.

113. Delafield-Butt JT, Freer Y, Perkins J, Skulina D, Schogler B, Lee DN. Prospective organization of neonatal arm movements: a motor foundation of embodied agency, disrupted in premature birth. Developmental Science. 2018;21:e12693.