Translation, reliability and validity of the Newsha hearing, language and speech development scale among children in Iran

ABSTRACT

To translate and to test reliability and validity of the Newsha Hearing, Language and Speech Development Scale in Iran. The first version of Newsha scale was prepared in four developmental milestones of "hearing", "receptive language", "expressive language" and "speech" in 13 age groups from birth to 72 months via much survey on different related resources. After a pilot study on 75 children and performing necessary corrections, the test was conducted on 593 normal children of both sexes in nurseries and health centers of Tehran province from July 2006 to August 2007. The teat-retest reliability, inter-rater reliability, content validity and construct validity of the test were determined. More than 95% correlation was shown in both test-retest and inter-rater reliabilities [P < 0.001]. The content validity revealed "perfect" and "too much" options of seven choices Likert scale in more than 90%, and construct validity exhibited the effect of age on the test results. Accepting minimum or higher score was considered as the criteria of Newsha findings interpretation in all age groups of each developmental milestone. For the cases who can not accept this criterion, completion of scale in lower age[s] group to define any probable developmental delay is necessary. The sex difference was shown just in 3 items among all the 373 items of the scale [P < 0.02]. The "Newsha Developmental Scale" is an integrated and a comprehensive scale to evaluate development process and identify any delay in developmental abilities of children with Persian language from birth to 6 years of age that has good reliability and validity