Sociolinguistic Adaptation Process of the Bangla Western Aphasia Battery‑Revised

Abstract

Introduction: The purpose of this study was to complete a sociolinguistic adaptation and validation of the Western Aphasia Battery-Revised (WAB-R) (Kertesz and Raven, 2007), an English aphasia assessment into the Bangla language. Two hundred and fifty million people speak Bangla/Bengali in eastern parts of India and Bangladesh. Methods: This study had two steps: first, three professional translators performed the translation and back-translation processes on the WAB-R. Second, to validate the adaptation, 27 neurologically normal individuals and 36 patients with a history of cerebrovascular accident participated in this study. Results: Three types of adaptation processes, i.e., introduction of new words or phrases, direct translation, and direct translation replacing concepts were involved. As per different adaptation processes, Record form part 1 (derives aphasia quotient [AQ]) achieved 25% of sociocultural and linguistic changes whereas Record form part 2 (derives cortical quotient and language quotient) achieved 57% of sociocultural and linguistic changes. The items of Bedside record form (shorter version of the test) were taken from Record form part 1 and part 2. Normal controls completed the test with scores of 100% on most of the sub-tests while the patients' performance was significantly lower. Eighty percentage of the patients had aphasia, based on their test scores, and investigators could categorize the patients by aphasia type based on the AQ and bedside aphasia score. There is a high correlation between the subtest scores of Record form part 1 and Bedside record form. Conclusion: Some changes were needed to adapt the WAB-R for Bangla speakers. Preliminary validation study demonstrated that the Bangla WAB-R could differentiate the normal population from the patients with aphasia by their language performance. Investigators will attempt to standardize the test in the next phase of the study.