ABSTRACT

Background: Speech and language therapists in Gulf Arabic countries still rely on informal aphasia and/or translated western-language assessments to assess the language proficiency of people with aphasia. However, these tests are not sensitive to the linguistic and cultural features of the Arabic language, which may lead to inaccurate diagnosis. This paper describes the preliminary development and psychometric evaluation of the short aphasia test for Gulf Arabic speakers (SATG).

Method: The aim was to develop and preliminarily assess the psychometric properties of the SATG. Three phases determined whether subtests and tasks were culturally and linguistically appropriate for Gulf Arabic populations. The test consists of six sections that assess different language skills: semi-spontaneous speech, auditory comprehension, repetition, naming, automatic speech, recitation, reading and writing. Together, these aim to detect the absence or presence of aphasia and provide a broad classification of aphasia syndrome (fluent and non-fluent).

Result: The SATG takes 20 minutes to complete. It was administered to 37 healthy adult controls and 31 people with aphasia post-stroke. In this pilot study the SATG demonstrated good to excellent reliability over time and from one clinician to another. The SATG was found to have face and content validity.

Conclusion: Preliminary results indicate that the SATG is a reliable and valid aphasia assessment. Further study is needed to examine the efficacy of the SATG to screen for the presence of aphasia (i.e., differentiate between those with and without aphasia post-stroke), distinguish severity levels for aphasia, and to improve standardisation with a wider range of control participants.

摘要

背景：海湾阿拉伯国家的言语和语言治疗师仍然依靠非正式的失语症和/或翻译的西方语言评估来评估失语症患者的语言能力。然而，这些测试对阿拉伯语的语言和文化特征不敏感，这可能导致诊断不准确。本文描述了针对海湾阿拉伯语使用者 (SATG) 的短时失语症测试的初步开发和心理测量评估。

方法：目的是开发和初步评估 SATG 的心理测量特性。三个阶段确定子测试和任务在文化和语言上是否适合海湾阿拉伯人口。测试由六个部分组成，评估不同的语言技能：半自发说话、听觉理解、重复、命名、自动说话、背诵、阅读和写作。总之，这些旨在检测失语症的缺失或存在，并提供失语症综合征（流利和非流利）的广泛分类。

结果：SATG 需要 20 分钟才能完成。它被用于 37 名健康成人对照和 31 名中风后失语患者。在这项试点研究中，SATG 证明了随着时间的推移以及从一位临床医生到另一位临床医生的良好到出色的可靠性。SATG 被发现具有表面效度和内容效度。

结论：初步结果表明 SATG 是一种可靠且有效的失语症评估。需要进一步研究 SATG 筛查失语症的有效性（即区分中风后失语症患者和非失语症患者）、区分失语症的严重程度，以及提高更广泛的对照参与者的标准化程度.