| Summary: | Most researchers and clinicians agree that early detection of aphasia after stroke will help to predict future outcome (see Laska et al., 2007) and to allow for a better recovery by combining early and intensive speech therapy with early neural reorganization (see Salter et al., 2006). However, most standard aphasia tests are inadequate for assessment in acute stroke. The recently developed Language Screening Test (LAST; Flamand-Roze et al., 2011) can be used for early detection of signs of aphasia in acute post-stroke patients.
The goal of the present study was to adapt and to establish normative data for the LAST in the French-Canadian population of Quebec according to age and education.
Methods: The first step was to adapt the LAST to the French-Canadian linguistic context by (1) assessing its surface validity, and (2) verifying with a local language expert the relevance of the selected items. After this first step, the final version of the test (LAST-Q) was developed. The final LAST-Q comprises 5 subtests: picture naming, repetition, automatic speech, word picture matching and verbal instructions. Patients have 5 seconds to answer each question, and the answers are scored as either 1 or 0. As in the original LAST, two parallel versions of the LAST-Q (versions a and b), for patient test-retest, were developed. The second step was to norm the LAST-Q (a and b) with a sample of 50 French-Canadian normals. Participants were divided into four groups according to their (a) age (40 to 60 years old and 60 to 80), and (b) educational level (≤11 and ≥12 years of education).
Results. As expected, a perfect score was obtained for all people from both groups of ages and both educational levels but only for one of the two versions of the LAST-Q. The scores of the second version seemed influenced by the educational level (i.e. only individuals with high level of education obtained a 15/15 final score while low level education individuals obtained heterogeneous scores between 11 to 15). Thus, only one version of the LAST-Q attained the goal of perfect score required for a clinical routine screening test in acute emergency clinics.
Conclusions: The LAST-Q has proven to be a user-friendly test for bedside assessment and its administration takes less than 3 minutes. As the original LAST, the LAST-Q with a cutoff score of <15 from a maximal score of 15, showed optimal sensitivity and specificity for language disorders.
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