LittlEars™ – Hearing questionnaire: semantic and cultural adaptation of the version of the Littlears™ questionnaire in Portuguese with families of children with hearing loss

ABSTRACT

Purpose

Semantic and cultural adaptation of a preliminary Portuguese version of the questionnaire LittlEars® in families of children with hearing loss.

Methods

Instrument administered as an interview or questionnaire, using a validated translation of LittlEars® Questionnaire in Portuguese with parents of children with hearing loss up to two years of hearing age. Parent’s comments, questions, suggestions, examples, comments or difficulties were used for development of the adapted version. A brainstorming session with a group of experts was held to validate the final version.

Results

Participants were 37 individuals who answered the questionnaire, parents of 32 children. Only four parents preferred to answer the questionnaire format, while 28 preferred to answer it as an interview. In the interview format, parents had difficulty understanding different items. Upon review and discussion of the comments of the families, a modified version was proposed.

Conclusion

Changes in the questionnaire items were related to vocabulary, idiomatic expressions and unknown examples. The results of the questionnaire LittlEars® varied depending on hearing age and Speech Intelligibility Index - SII, suggesting that the adapted translation has sensitivity for measuring the hearing abilities. Other studies should apply the new version and final validation.

Hearing loss; Parents; Hearing aids; Hearing tests; Early intervention (education)