Ms. Thamali Dissanayake
University of Kelaniya Ragama, Srilanka.
Biography:
She is working as Speech and Language therapist at Faculty of Medicine University of Kelaniya Ragama Sri Lanka.
Abstract:
Background
Early identification and referring for adequate treatments of aphasia is essential as it may cause for limitations in daily life and functional communication. But there are no currently available standardized aphasia screening tests in Sri Lankan Sinhala speaking context. The dissertation mainly focused on adapting Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test (FAST) for patients with post-stroke aphasia in the Sri Lankan Sinhala speaking context.
Materials and method
The descriptive cross-sectional study design was implemented for adapting FAST into Sri Lankan Sinhala speaking context. A purposive sampling of 90 non- impaired people and 35 aphasia patients from government hospital speech and language therapy clinic settings in the western province enlisted for the study. Study instruments were the self-administrative questionnaire for adapting and translating the tasks and interviewer administrative adapted screening tool.
Results
There was a significant negative correlation between age and total scores in non- impaired population (A Spearman's rank-order coefficient [r s ] = -.701, p< .001) and a high degree of inter-rater reliability of the adapted screening test was found (intraclass correlation coefficient [ICC]= 1.000, p<.001).
Conclusion
The newly adapted Sinhala version of FAST is a reliable and sensitive screening tool for aphasia detecting in Sri Laankan Sinhala speaking context. The elicited cut values are 28 (age 20-60), 19 (age 61-70), 14 (above 71) for each age group.