Neuropsychological Application of the International Test Commission’s Guidelines for Translating and Adapting Tests
Chair:
Tedd Judd
Universidad del Valle de Guatemala, Bellingham, WA, United States
Discussant:
Aparna Dutt
Duttanagar Mental Health Centre, Kolkata, West Bengal, India
Category: Cross Cultural Neuropsychology/ Clinical Cultural Neuroscience
Keyword 1: cross-cultural issues Keyword 2: test development Keyword 3: bilingualism/multilingualism
Summary Abstract:
The bulk of neuropsychology and of its tests have been developed in European-origin cultures and languages. Neuropsychological theory and knowledge and global brain health stand to benefit from more robust extension of neuropsychology to other cultures and languages. One component of such extension involves the development of tests that appropriately serve neuropsychology’s purposes in non-European languages and cultures.
Many early attempts to extend neuropsychological tests have involved little more than test translation. These results have often been disappointing. Fortunately, the technologies of test translation and adaptation have advanced notably in the past two decades. These advances have been codified in the International Test Commission’s Guidelines for Test Translation and Adaptation. Unfortunately, these Guidelines are not always followed in projects for neuropsychological test translation and adaptation. To make these Guidelines better known and followed, the Assessment workgroup of the INS Cultural Special Interest Group (SIG) has elaborated how these Guidelines may be applied to the special needs of neuropsychological testing. These Applications are intended to be of use to researchers and others involved in test translation, adaptation, and development projects; to test users; and to grant and journal reviewers. We hope that the ultimate beneficiaries will be test takers.
In this symposium, we will present the work of this group. We will discuss the distinctive translation and adaptation needs and constraints for each major neuropsychological domain. We will discuss distinctive needs and constraints related to the various purposes of neuropsychological tests. We will review the preconditions specified in Application of the Guidelines for test translation and adaptation projects. We will discuss different techniques of translation and adaptation and their advantages and disadvantages. We will review the Application of the Guidelines to the confirmation and validation of neuropsychological test translations and adaptions for various purposes. We will also address issues of test administration and scoring. Each of these topics will be illustrated with examples from actual projects of test translation and adaptation.
The symposium will then turn to how these Applications and Guidelines can actually be implemented in a project. We will discuss decision making with respect to when it may be best to translate and adapt an existing test and when it may be better to develop a new test.
We will illustrate the implementation of the Application with a project of translating and adapting the Addenbrooke Cognitive Exam III from English to Bengali. We will review which Applications were feasible, the results of their implementation, and which Applications were especially challenging.
The closing discussion will project the implementation of these Applications into the future and to languages that currently have little to no neuropsychological technologies.
Aparna Dutt, Duttanagar Mental Health Centre, Kolkata, India Ranita Nandi, Duttanagar Mental Health Centre, Kolkata, India Rahul Venkatesh, Duttanagar Mental Health Centre, Kolkata, India Sulakshana Rao, Duttanagar Mental Health Centre, Kolkata, India Pallavi Bhargava, Kokilaben Dhirubhai Ambani Hospital, Munbai, India Arpita Bose, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom Amitabha Ghosh, Apollo Multispeciality Hospitals, Kolkata, India Jonathan Evans, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom
