Development and psychometric vali- dation of Malay version of Parental Report on Auditory Training (MyPRAT) questionnaire for clinical use

Introduction: For promoting optimum speech and language development, children with sensorineural hearing loss are required to use hearing amplification devices and undergo a specific auditory training program. The aim of the study was to develop and validate a new questionnaire for documenting the progress of the auditory training among Malay hearing impaired children. Materials and Methods: In the first phase of this validation study, Malay version of Parental Report on Auditory Training (MyPRAT) questionnaire was developed accordingly. In the second phase, the validity and reliability of MyPRAT were determined. Specifically, its content validity (n=9), face validity (n=33) and construct validity (n=11) were tested. For reliability analysis, its internal consistency was determined by means of item-total correlation, Cronbach’s alpha and split-half reliability. Results: As reported by clinical experts, content validity index (CVI) values of MyPRAT were high (0.78-1.00) indicating excellent content validity. The face validity of MyPRAT was adequate as the majority of respondents (>80%) rated the format, content and language use of MyPRAT as “good”. Items in Part A of MyPRAT were highly correlated with Meaningful Auditory Integration Scale (MAIS) scores (r=0.86, p<0.001) indicating good construct validity of MyPRAT. The internal consistency of MyPRAT questionnaire was good as revealed by item total correlations (0.43-0.97), Cronbach’s alpha (0.90-0.92) and split-half reliability (0.96-0.98).Conclusion: The newly developed MyPRAT questionnaire has been proven to be valid and reliable for its intended clinical applications. Nevertheless, further research is welcome to support the outcomes obtained from the present study.