Normalization and validation of Auditory Processing Domain Questionnaire in normal 8-12 year-old children

Auditory processing disorder (APD) weakens recognition and understanding auditory data and adversely affects children's language and learning if remains undetected and untreated. Since early diagnosis of APD can obviate its adverse effects, screening is hugely important in identifying suspected cases. Auditory Processing Domain Questionnaire (APDQ) is a reliable tool among APD screening methods. The present study aimed to translate and to determine the validity and reliability of APDQ.
The first phase included translation of APDQ into Persian according to international quality of life assessment (IQOLA) method including forward translation, assessment of translation, and backward translation. The second phase involved establishing face and content validities and reliability of the Persian version of APDQ.
All the items had appropriate quality in terms of translation difficulty following review of 5 items and had appropriate translation quality after review of 21 items. In terms of face validity, more than 80% of the participants gave a score of 4 or higher to the items. In content validity, content validity ratio exceeded 63% in all the items. In determining reliability, Cronbach's alpha in subscales of 1-3 was found to be 0.88, 0.80, and 0.86, respectively. Intraclass correlation coefficient for each of the three subscales was higher than 0.92.
The Persian version of APDQ has favorable translation quality, validity, and reliability. The Persian version of APDQ can be used for screening of auditory processing skills in 8 to 12-year-old children.