Cross-cultural adaptation of Preschool Language Assessment Instrument: Second Edition

Abstract

PURPOSE: In Brazil, formal tools for the evaluation of spoken language are scarce. Therefore, this study aimed to translate and adapt to Brazilian Portuguese the Preschool Language Assessment Instrument: Second Edition (PLAI-2). METHODS: The process of translation and adaptation of this instrument was conducted in two stages - Stage 1: (1a) translation of the original version to Brazilian Portuguese, (1b) comparison of the translated versions and synthesis into a single Portuguese version, (1c) back-translation, (1d) revision of the translated version; and Step 2: (2a) application of the Portuguese version in a pilot project with 30 subjects, and (2b) statistical comparison of three age groups. RESULTS: In the Brazilian version, all items of the original version were kept. However, it was necessary to modify the application order of one item, and the change of one picture was suggested in another. The results obtained after application indicated that the Brazilian version of the PLAI-2 allows us to distinguish the performance of participants belonging to different age groups, and that the raw score tends to increase with age. CONCLUSION: Semantic and syntactic adjustments were required and made to ensure that PLAI-2 would be used with the same methodological rigor of the original instrument. The adaptation process observed the theoretical, semantic, and cultural equivalences.

Preschoolers' Performance on the Brazilian Adaptation of the Preschool Language Assessment Instrument - Second Edition

“…According to the authors, when the PLAI-2 was translated into and adapted to Brazilian Portuguese [14,15], the adjustments made to the test were predominantly grammatical and were made to achieve theoretical, semantic and cultural equivalency. These changes were made for all items from the original version as well as for all application instructions (the beginning of the test, scoring criteria, interpretation of results and feedback forms).…”

“…Initiatives of instrument adaptations to evaluate spoken language are a current need in the speech therapy domain in Brazil in order to bridge the existing gap regarding objective evaluation methods [14,15]. The availability of such instruments makes the accomplishment of comparative and cross-cultural studies possible [6].…”

“…A version of the PLAI-2 previously adapted to Brazilian Portuguese was used in this study [14,15]. We emphasize that this instrument is composed of 70 stimuli proportionally divided between receptive and expressive language (i.e., standardized evaluation).…”

“…One component of the translation and adaptation processes were small semantic and syntactic adjustments that were necessary to ensure that the instrument could be applied in Brazil with the same rigorous methodology as that used for the original instrument [14,15]. A previous study was conducted containing the first results regarding the use of the procedure adapted to Brazilian Portuguese among children with typical spoken language development.…”

Instruments to assess children’s language and speech translated and adapted into Brazilian Portuguese: an integrative literature review

“…Considering now the guidelines, four 14,18,27,29 of the eight articles included in this review used more than one set of guidelines -one article 18 even mentioned six of them. Altogether, eight guidelines were mentioned, of which the most employed were those by Guillemin et.…”