title: Production and evaluation of a Spanish version of the LittlEARS(®) Auditory Questionnaire for the assessment of auditory development in children.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  To adapt the LittlEARS(®) Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ) into Spanish and evaluate the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the questionnaire.
  
  
  METHODS
  The LEAQ was translated into Spanish by a back-translation design. Following the Guidelines for Adapting Tests of the International Test Commission (ITC), for the first time with the LEAQ adaptations, two qualitative methods were used to evaluate the translated version of the LEAQ: an expert appraisal method followed by cognitive interviewing. Having improved the Spanish version of the LEAQ with these evaluations, a psychometric analysis was conducted. 215 parents of children with normal hearing aged between 1.7 and 24.0 months participated in the study. Corrected item-total correlations were calculated to analyze to what extent items distinguish levels of auditory development of assessed children. Cronbach's alpha coefficient - to evaluate internal consistency across items - was also calculated. To obtain validity evidence, correlations between item-total score and age were calculated. A non-linear regression model was also estimated to obtain normative data for expected and minimum value of total scores from the questionnaire according to age.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Expert appraisal and cognitive interviewing pointed out some translation errors and difficulties parents had while responding to the Spanish LEAQ. Such errors and difficulties were fixed in the Spanish LEAQ version applied for psychometric analysis. Corrected item-total correlations ranged from 0.15 to 0.75. Cronbach's alpha coefficient value was 0.92, indicating that the measurements are highly reliable. The value of the correlation between total scores and age was 0.86 (p<001). The regression analysis conducted to obtain normative data shows that 79% of the variation in the total scores can be explained by age.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The results of psychometric analyses provide evidence supporting the use of the Spanish version of the LEAQ as a valid and culturally appropriate tool to assess the development of auditory behaviour in Spanish children who are 24 months old or younger.
authors.affiliation: Cochlear Implant Unit, Departament of Otorhinolaryngology, San Cecilio University Hospital, Granada, Spain; Social Psychology and Methodology of the Behavioural Sciences Department, University of Granada, Granada, Spain. Electronic address: albasaida79@gmail.com.
authors.forename: Alba-Saida
authors.initials: AS
authors.lastname: García Negro
authors.affiliation: Social Psychology and Methodology of the Behavioural Sciences Department, University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Jose-Luis
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Padilla García
authors.affiliation: Cochlear Implant Unit, Departament of Otorhinolaryngology, San Cecilio University Hospital, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: Manuel
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sainz Quevedo
mesh_terms: D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D002657:Child Development / Q000502:physiology*; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D008297:Male; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000379:methods*; D012044:Regression Analysis; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014177:Translations
keywords: Auditory development; Cochlear implant; LittlEARS Auditory Questionnaire; Psychometric properties; Questionnaire adaptation