Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior Scale (DABS) for Brazil

• In Event: Instruments to evaluate child development in Brazil: adaptation and construction processes

Abstract

Adaptive behavior (AB) represents the set of conceptual, social and practical skills and is related to the individual's capacity to perform everyday tasks, take care of themself and relate to others in their daily life. This is one of the domains of child development and is a factor to be considered when evaluating different neurodevelopmental disorders. The Diagnostic Adaptive Behavior Scale (DABS) is a North American tool developed for the assessment of AB of children and adolescents aged between 4 and 21 years to assist the diagnostic process of neurodevelopmental disorders. DABS is a semi-structured interview, conducted between an examiner and a respondent who must be a parent or guardian with sufficient knowledge of the child's typical behavior. It is composed of 75 items divided into three subscales according to the AB domains which must be rated on a four-point scale (Tassé et al., 2018). In Brazil, however, few instruments are available for the assessment of AB. Therefore, a cross-cultural adaptation and validation was conducted to enable the use of DABS for assessments in the Brazilian context. A seven-step procedure was adopted, as suggested by the author of the original instrument: 1) two translations of the original instrument were performed by professionals in the field; 2) translations were gathered and compared in order to get to a Preliminary Translation; 3) Preliminary Translation was examined by another group of professionals who verified its quality and accuracy; 4) both groups of professionals met to discuss the Preliminary Translation and made justified changes that gave rise to the Pre-Test Translation; 5) pilot application of the Pre-Test Translation in potential users of the scale was conducted; 6) adjustments were made to parts of the Pre-Test Translation that were identified as unclear or problematic during the pilot study; 7) the final version of the translation was administered in a large sample to determine its psychometric properties. After these steps, the following stage was comprised of psychometric studies of item analysis, parameter estimation, validity and reliability, which were conducted from a sample of 538 parents or guardians of Brazilian children and adolescents aged between 4 and 21 years old (M=10.29±4.34). Among them, 320 (59.5%) were male and 218 (40.5%) were female and 357 (66.4%) comprised the clinical group (previously diagnosed with neurodevelopmental disorders) while 181 (33.6%) the non-clinal group. DABS’s adapted version showed adequate psychometric properties for use in the Brazilian context. The three domains and age bands show CFI between .94 and 1.00, RMSEA between .01 and .08. Items factor loading range from .69 to .97 in conceptual domain, .61 to .96 in social domain and .48 to .95 in practical skills domain. It presented intraclass correlation coefficients (ICC) ranging from .60 to .97, indicating a satisfactory level of agreement between evaluators, in addition to strong correlations of its scores with those of another AB measure already validated for Brazil, standing as an important evidence of convergent validity. From this cross-cultural study, the adapted version has great potential for application to the Brazilian population.

Authors

• Adriana Schütz, Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)
  Presenting Author

• SILVIA CRISTINA MARCELIANO HALLBERG

• Marc Tasse, The Ohio State University

• Euclides Jose de Mendonça Filho, McGill University

• Denise R Bandeira, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)