Mode of Administration of LittlEARS® (MED-EL) Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ) as a Screening Tool in Ghana: Are there any differences in final test scores between “Self Administration” and “Interview”?

Abstract The mode of administration of LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ) in Ghana, where a Universal Newborn Hearing Screening (UNHS) has not been implemented and in addition about 31% of adults have never been to school was investigated. The original LEAQ English version was adapted into three Akan (Ghanaian) languages using the translation/back-translation procedure recommended by the International Test Commission and validated using data collected for N= 402 children. The effect of administration mode was however, investigated by collecting data from N=152 respondents. Our results show that it does not make any difference in terms of LEAQ scores whether the questionnaire was administered via interview or by self - administration. Results of the study support the position that LEAQ is an appropriate screening tool for children living in developing countries where adult illiteracy rates are high. 1. Introduction The LittlEARS® (MED-EL) Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ) was designed to monitor pre- and post operative auditory development in children receiving cochlear implants (Weichbold et al, 2005). The trend toward cochlear implantation at an early age of about 12 months, or even earlier, necessitated the development of the LEAQ (Coninx 2004; Weichbold et al., 2005; Coninx et al., 2009). The LEAQ is designed with an easy “YES” – “NO” format. It is scored in a straightforward manner (Bagatto, Brown, Moodie, & Scollie, 2011) and requires between 5 and 10 minutes to complete. The psychometric properties of the LEAQ, such as norm data, support its use as a tool for evaluating auditory behaviour in all children and in more than 15 languages (Coninx et al., 2009). Figure1 shows the LEAQ validation data in over 15 languages. Therefore, LEAQ provides a general picture of the auditory behavior and functioning of all children in the age range of 0-24 months. Initial field studies on using the LEAQ as a screening tool have been carried out (Coninx & Schäfer, 2012), and the sensitivity for hearing loss, as assessed so far, is about 0.99 (Neumann, et al., 2012). Figure 1: LittlEARS® Auditory Questionnaire (LEAQ) validation data. Source: Coninx et al., (20