Cross-Cultural Adaptation of the Scale of Auditory Behaviors Questionnaire

• Published in: Language, speech & hearing services in schools Vol. 50; no. 4; pp. 683 - 692
• Main Authors: Skarzynski, Henryk, Bienkowska, Katarzyna, Gos, Elzbieta, Skarzynski, Piotr Henryk, Grudzien, Diana, Czajka, Natalia, Wolujewicz, Kinga, Wlodarczyk, Elzbieta
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: American Speech-Language-Hearing Association 01-10-2019
• Subjects: Acoustics; At Risk Persons; Auditory Perception; Children; Foreign Countries; Gender Differences; Pattern Recognition; Perceptual Impairments; Psychological Testing; Psychometrics; Questionnaires; Scores; Screening Tests; Symptoms (Individual Disorders); Test Reliability; Test Validity; Poland
• ISSN: 0161-1461
• DOI: 10.1044/2019_LSHSS-19-0014

Purpose: Children with (central) auditory processing disorder [(C)APD] exhibit many cognitive difficulties and receive negative psychosocial consequences from their disorder. Diagnosis of (C)APD relies on multidisciplinary assessment, including psychological testing. There is a strong need for valid and reliable questionnaires to identify children who are at risk of (C)APD. This work aims to establish the psychometric properties of the Polish version of the Scale of Auditory Behaviors (SAB; Domitz & Schow, 2000; Krzeszewska & Kurkowski, 2015; Miranda, Bruera, & Serra 2016; Musiek & Chermak, 2007; Nunes et al., 2013) as a screening tool in children. Method: The SAB was administered to parents of 326 children (152 girls and 174 boys) aged from 6 to 12 years (M = 8.24, SD = 1.56). The questionnaire consists of 12 items related to various symptoms of (C)APD and allows the frequency of particular behaviors to be assessed. In addition, the questionnaire Children's Home Inventory for Listening Difficulties was administered to parents, and 3 other psychoacoustic behavioral tests (Frequency Pattern Test, Duration Pattern Test, Dichotic Digit Test; Czajka et al., 2012) were conducted on the children to evaluate their auditory abilities. Results: The Polish version of SAB demonstrated high internal consistency (Cronbach's [alpha] = 0.93), confirmed by interitem correlations. Intraclass correlation, which was used to determine reproducibility, was 0.95. There were also significant and positive relationships, ranging from r = 0.17 to 0.68, between the SAB score and scores of other measures, indicating convergent validity of the tool. Girls demonstrated higher SAB scores than boys (p < 0.05); however, age was not statistically significant. A ceiling effect was detected, but no floor effect. Conclusions: Results of psychometric and statistical analyses suggest the Polish version of SAB appears to be a valid and reliable questionnaire to evaluate symptoms of (C)APD in children, especially as a screening tool.