Adaption and validation of the Mississippi Aphasia Screening Test to Estonian speakers with aphasia

Abstract

ObjectivesThe Mississippi Aphasia Screening Test (MAST) is a brief screening tool for assessing the expressive and receptive language abilities of patients with aphasia. The goal of this study was to adapt and validate the MAST into the Estonian language. The discriminant validity and internal consistency of the test were examined, as well as its sensitivity and specificity.MethodsThe MASTest was administered in 50 left hemisphere stroke patients with aphasia (LHA+ group) in the acute phase after the stroke and 126 healthy volunteers in a control group (CG), stratified by age and level of education. Nonparametric tests were used to get normative values, compare the values of the MASTest scores between the LHA+ group and the CG, and to assess the discriminant validity, internal consistency, sensitivity, and specificity of the MASTest.ResultsThe summary scores: total score (MASTest‐T), expressive score (MASTest‐E), and receptive score (MASTest‐R) correlated with age and educational level, and the normative values were adjusted accordingly. The LHA+ group showed more impairment than the CG in all subtests and summary scores. The internal reliability of the MASTest was high for the whole sample and LHA+ group. The sensitivity and specificity of the MASTest using the 5th percentile were 74% and 94%, respectively, but using receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis, it was 89% and 80%.ConclusionThe MASTest is a valid screening tool for evaluating expressive and receptive language abilities in Estonian patients with aphasia in early stroke. The MASTest is the first validated aphasia screening test for Estonian‐speaking people, who number less than one million worldwide.

Brief Montreal-Toulouse Language Assessment Battery: adaptation and content validity

“…Even though some degree of spontaneous recovery may be expected, it is important to diagnose aphasia while still in hospital in order to allow for the adequate treatment of linguistic and communicative aspects (Johnson et al, 1988 ; Rohde et al, 2018 ) and the early implementation of more effective and targeted interventions. As such, language should be evaluated as early as possible in order to guide the rehabilitation process and contribute to prognosis (Nursi et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Screening instruments can provide information about the language disorder in terms of its impact on comprehension and expression. The results of such an assessment contribute to early rehabilitation interventions, which may lead to greater gains and improve language recovery (Nursi et al, 2018 ).…”