ABSTRACT Many Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children are affected by chronic middle ear infection or otitis media from infancy that has a negative impact on development of listening and communication skills. Deficits in these skills are often not detected until school-age when the opportunity for early intervention is lost. Primary health and early childhood workers need screening tools to assist them with detecting the problem early, but there is a scarcity of tools. This study reports the development and validation of a screening tool for detecting communication problems in young Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children. The tool, called the Hearing and Talking Scale (HATS), relies on a systematic use of parent observations of communication behaviours of their children in everyday situations. Developed by using a co-design approach, the HATS is culturally and linguistically appropriate for use with parents/carers of young children by front-line workers not trained in speech-language pathology. We validated the HATS by comparing the HATS score of 68 children (46 Indigenous and 22 non-Indigenous children) with their performance in standardised assessments. The accuracy of the HATS was 80% and 81% when compared to the ASQ-TRAK and the Expressive Vocabulary Test respectively. The HATS takes 5 minutes to administer, and is easy to score and interpret. It can be used as part of a standard ear and hearing health check for young children to support early detection so that those with problems can be referred for specialist diagnosis and treatment at a young age.

中文翻译：

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听力和谈话量表 (HATS)：澳大利亚城市和偏远地区的土著和托雷斯海峡岛民儿童的发展和验证

摘要 许多原住民和托雷斯海峡岛民儿童从婴儿时期就受到慢性中耳感染或中耳炎的影响，这对听力和沟通技巧的发展有负面影响。当失去早期干预的机会时，这些技能的缺陷往往直到学龄才被发现。初级卫生保健和幼儿工作者需要筛查工具来帮助他们及早发现问题，但缺乏工具。本研究报告了一种筛查工具的开发和验证，该工具用于检测年轻的土著和托雷斯海峡岛民儿童的沟通问题。该工具被称为听力和谈话量表 (HATS)，它依赖于系统地使用父母对孩子在日常情况下的交流行为的观察。通过使用协同设计方法开发，HATS 在文化和语言上适合未受过语言病理学培训的一线工作人员与幼儿的父母/照顾者一起使用。我们通过比较 68 名儿童（46 名土著儿童和 22 名非土著儿童）的 HATS 分数与他们在标准化评估中的表现来验证 HATS。与 ASQ-TRAK 和表达性词汇测试相比，HATS 的准确度分别为 80% 和 81%。HATS 需要 5 分钟来管理，并且易于评分和解释。它可以作为幼儿标准耳朵和听力健康检查的一部分，以支持早期发现，以便那些有问题的人可以在很小的时候被转介到专科诊断和治疗。