Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) in Persian normal hearing children: A validation study

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijporl.2018.07.036Get rights and content

Abstract

Introduction

Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) is a popular parent-report scale used to assess the pre-first word vocalization of children. There is not any tool to assess pre-verbal vocalizations in Persian speaking children. Therefore, considering the two important roles of pre-verbal vocalizations both in the early diagnosis of hearing impairment and in measuring the effectiveness of CIs and habilitation programs, we aimed to adapt and validate the PRISE questionnaire on Persian normal hearing children aged 3–18 months and estimate the PRISE's normative distribution for them.

Methods

The research was administered as a cross-sectional study. Back translation method was used to develop the Persian version of the PRISE (PRISE-P). Six hundred and forty 3–18 month old Persian speaking children were recruited through consecutive sampling method. All of the children had passed the universal newborn hearing screening. According to the standard developmental test, all of the children had normal development. The internal consistency of the scale was measured through the Cronbach's alpha. The convergent validity was analyzed through comparing the PRISE scores with the Persian version of the Auditory Behavior in Everyday Life (ABEL-P).

Results

The Cronbach's alpha value of the PRISE was 0.88. The PRISE corrected item-total correlations were significantly high ranging from 0.86 to 0.89. A significant correlation was found between the PRISE-P and the ABEL-P total scores (r = 0.628). There was a high positive correlation between the PRISE total scores and the children's age (r = 0.791).

Conclusion

The PRISE-P is a valid and reliable tool to assess the pre-verbal vocalizations development in Persian speaking children aged 3 months and more.

Introduction

In the recent years, several studies have been conducted to find feasible measures in order to evaluate the effectiveness of cochlear implants (CIs) and habilitation process in children with hearing impairment (HI). Accordingly, pre-verbal vocalizations [1,2], audiovisual spoken word recognition [3,4] and audiovisual sentence repetition [5] are three practical measures. Oryadi-Zanjani et al. suggested audiovisual spoken word recognition as a clinical measure to assess the Efficacy of CIs in children with severe to profound hearing loss. Based on their findings, children with HI using CIs had higher scores in audiovisual spoken word recognition than auditory-only condition due to the sufficient development of auditory skills [4]. Besides, Oryadi-Zanjani et al. reported that audiovisual integration occurs in children using CI during sentence repetition similar to their peers with normal hearing (NH) because of achieving auditory development appropriately [5]. Thus, they recommended audiovisual spoken word recognition and audiovisual sentence repetition as two clinical criteria to assess the effectiveness of CIs and auditory habilitation in children with hearing loss [4,5].

By comparing vocal development in deaf and hearing infants, for the first time, Oller and Eilers indicated that contrary to the traditional belief, deaf infants could not produce well-formed syllables in the first 10 months of life dissimilar to their peers with NH. Then, Oller and Eilers concluded that vocal development is essentially dependent on audition [6]. In addition, Eilers and Oller studied the role of infant vocalizations on the early diagnosis of severe HI. According to their findings, the mode age of producing canonical vocalizations in infants with NH was 7 months, whereas infants with HI produced canonical syllables moderately in 24 months. Moreover, they reported a nearly robust correlation between the age at the onset of canonical stage and age of auditory amplification. Therefore, Eilers and Oller indicated failure in producing canonical syllables before 11 months of age as an essential risk factor of HI [7]. Kishon-Rabin et al. developed Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) as a popular parent-report scale to compare pre-first word vocalization of children with HI with their peers with NH before and after CI. Using the PRISE, they found that unlike children with NH, those with HI could not achieve pre-verbal vocalizations as a canonical stage prior to implantation. However, the infants with HI showed significant improvements in pre-verbal vocalizations and then in first-word productions within a few months after implantation. Their findings indicated the relationship between early auditory skills and prelexical vocalization in infancy. Therefore, Kishon-Rabin et al. suggested that the PRISE can be applied as a useful tool by clinicians to assess prelinguistic skills of infants, and the effectiveness of CIs and habilitation process as well [1,2]. Cuda et al. studied the validity of the Italian PRISE version and reported that the PRISE is a highly valid and reliable tool used to assess pre-verbal vocalizations and first-word productions in infants and toddlers with NH [8].

Currently, according to our review, there is not any tool to assess pre-verbal vocalizations in Persian speaking children. Therefore, considering the two important roles of pre-verbal vocalizations both in the early diagnosis of hearing impairment and in measuring the effectiveness of CIs and habilitation programs, we decided to adapt and validate the PRISE questionnaire on Persian normal hearing children aged 3–18 months and estimate the PRISE's normative distribution for them. It is hypothesized that the PRISE is a useful and applicable tool to assess pre-verbal vocalizations in Persian speaking children. Accordingly, this study had four main aims including: (a) translation and back-translation of the Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) questionnaire to develop the Persian version of the questionnaire; (b) determination of the questionnaire's reliability; (c) determination of the development of pre-first word vocalizations of Persian speaking children using PRISE-P to develop a clinical criteria; and (d) determination of the questionnaire's capability to identify vocalizations progression accompanied by increase in age to introduce it as a screening tool.

Section snippets

Methods

The research was administered as a cross-sectional study. The research protocol was approved by the Ethics Committee of Shiraz University of Medical Sciences, Shiraz, Iran.

Results

There was not any significant difference between the frequencies of males (53.9%) and females (46.1%) (df = 1, X2 = 3.906, P = 0.048). Thus, it can be concluded that any sexual effects were controlled in the study.

Discussion

According to the results, the Persian version of the PRISE had a strong internal consistency reliability (Crombach's alpha = 0.88). This finding was in the same line with the results provided by Cuda et al. on the Italian version of the PRISE [8]. Thus, it can be concluded that the scale can be used to measure the “vocal behavior” as a developmental milestone. Besides, the item reliability was significantly high similar to the results of Cuda et al. [8].

The PRISE-P and the ABEL-P scales showed

Conclusion

The Persian version of the PRISE (PRISE-P) is a robust tool to measure the pre-verbal vocalizations in Persian speaking children in order to fulfill four main practical aims: (a) determination of the normality of the child's vocal development; (b) prediction of the sequence of the child's vocal development; (c) screening of the child suspected with hearing loss; and (d) evaluation of the effectiveness of cochlear implants and habilitation process in children with hearing impairment.

Conflicts of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.

Funding

This work was supported by Shiraz University of Medical Sciences [grants numbers 94-01-06-10569, 95-01-06-12999, 95-01-06-13000].

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the children and their parents who participated in the study. Besides, we would especially like to thank all undergraduate students of speech-language pathology for their cooperation in the data collecting. Mrs. Farzaneh Mobasheri and Dr. Zahra Shayan are appreciated for their consultation in analyzing the data.

Cited by (5)

  • Cross-cultural adaptation and psychometric assessment of a Persian version of Proctor's developmental vocal assessment protocol: Description of Persian infant vocal development

    2020, International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology
    Citation Excerpt :

    In spite of the values of infant vocal assessment, speech and language pathologists (SLPs) in Iran have access to very few valid measures to examine infant vocalizations, while values of such tools in the matter of the connections between early vocalization and later language development [13] and advantages of early identification and intervention [12] are undeniable. Oryadi-Zanjani [14] presented the Persian version of the Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE). While appropriate steps were taken to provide the cross-cultural adaptation of this instrument, the Persian version of the PRISE contained only 11 items and was presented specifically as an assessment tool to assist in the early diagnosis of hearing loss and evaluate the effectiveness of cochlear implants in infants with hearing loss [14].

  • Development of the Childhood Nonverbal Communication Scale

    2020, Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders
View full text