Adaptation of Apraxia Battery for Assessing the Patient with Apraxia

Background: Speech and Language Therapy is an established profession in many countries of the world but still very new in Bangladesh. There is no culturally appropriate adult assessment tool for assessing patient with Apraxia in Bangladesh and has no alternative tool in own language to assess and diagnose patient with apraxia. Objectives: The aim of the study was cultural adaptation of Apraxia Battery for assessing the patient with Apraxia. Methodology: A total of nineteen people diagnosed with apraxia of speech, within the age from 37 to 80 years, participated in this study. The investigator was used quantitative (item analysis, validity determination and reliability determination) and qualitative (observation and focus group discussion) method for the adaptation procedure. After observation and focus group discussion the investigator received concern from the panel of expert for conducting the pilot study. After find out the pilot study result the investigator conducted test and retest. The result was discussed changing forward translation, changing pilot study and test retest findings. The pilot study was examined in a sample of eight apraxia patients. The interval between five days the test and retest reliability was examined in a sample of eleven apraxia patients. Using the Cronbach’s alpha, examined the internal consistency and intra-class correlation for test retest reliability. Results: After modification of ABA-2 tool, the pilot study showed that the ABA-2 tool was in culturally appropriate in Bangladesh for apraxia patient. The test reliability for Diadochokinetic Rate, Increasing word length   (Part A), Increasing word length   (Part B), Limb Apraxia, Oral Apraxia, Latency Time for polysyllabic word, Utterance Time for polysyllabic word and Repeated Trials sub-tests appear to be satisfactory as researchers claim that Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between .8143 and 0.9006 indicate good to excellent reliability. And the retest reliability for these subtests Cronbach’s alpha coefficients ranging between 0.7898 and 0.9095 indicate acceptable to excellent reliability. The intra-class consistency for all subtest of the test and retest was excellent (Cronbach’s alpha =0.9478 to 0.9917). Conclusion: This study suggests that valid assessment of apraxia patient using the ABA-2 assessment tool. The modified ABA-2 assessment tool is feasible for assessing the patient with apraxia in content of Bangladesh. The test retest result also showed that the ABA-2 assessment tool was reliable in culturally. ABA-2 is reliable and valid instrument for evaluating the patients with apraxia. This assessment tools also help Speech and Language Therapists to assess and diagnose the patient with apraxia.