Cross-Cultural Collaborative Translation/Adaptation of Assessments Via International Working Groups

Abstract: Most neuropsychological assessments are developed in English, yet nearly 95% of the global population are not native English speakers. To further compound this problem, translating and adapting assessments is a complex, expensive, and time-consuming process that few individual psychologists can undertake on their own. To overcome these obstacles, we formed an international consulting group of bilingual pediatric rehabilitation/hospital clinicians to translate and adapt a common assessment of cognitive recovery, the Cognitive and Linguistic Scale (CALS), for use with youth in three linguistic/cultural groups: Spanish-speaking youth residing in the United States, Dutch-speaking youth residing in the Netherlands, and Hebrew-speaking youth residing in Israel. We describe the collaborative process of translating and adapting the CALS for the respective populations following the first two stages of the International Test Committee guidelines (Precondition and Test Development). We also present new, more culturally accessible versions of visual stimuli that can be used across many linguistic/cultural groups in the Western world. Initial examination of responses from a preliminary pilot sample of US youth ( N = 11) supported the acceptability of the Spanish translation and new visual stimuli. Next steps for each translated/adapted version of the CALS are discussed, including plans for validation in each respective population. We hope this overview will serve as a model for other groups to help decrease the translation burden on individual clinicians and promote higher-quality translated/adapted assessments that better serve diverse and often underserved patient populations.Impact and Implications:We describe our international consulting groups’ process of translating/adapting a measure of cognitive recovery for use with youth in three diverse linguistic and cultural groups and provide preliminary evidence to support the acceptability of the Spanish translation. Our cross-cultural collaborative approach to translation/adaptation decreases the translation burden on individual psychologists and promotes the development of higher-quality neuropsychological assessments for underserved linguistic populations. We hope this work will serve as a model for other teams interested in translating/adapting measures for diverse cultural-linguistic groups and thus reduce inequality in the access to neuropsychological assessment services within and across cultures.