Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) in Persian normal hearing children: A validation study

Production of Infant Scale Evaluation (PRISE) is a popular parent-report scale used to assess the pre-first word vocalization of children. There is not any tool to assess pre-verbal vocalizations in Persian speaking children. Therefore, considering the two important roles of pre-verbal vocalizations both in the early diagnosis of hearing impairment and in measuring the effectiveness of CIs and habilitation programs, we aimed to adapt and validate the PRISE questionnaire on Persian normal hearing children aged 3-18 months and estimate the PRISE's normative distribution for them.

The research was administered as a cross-sectional study. Back translation method was used to develop the Persian version of the PRISE (PRISE-P). Six hundred and forty 3-18 month old Persian speaking children were recruited through consecutive sampling method. All of the children had passed the universal newborn hearing screening. According to the standard developmental test, all of the children had normal development. The internal consistency of the scale was measured through the Cronbach's alpha. The convergent validity was analyzed through comparing the PRISE scores with the Persian version of the Auditory Behavior in Everyday Life (ABEL-P).

The Cronbach's alpha value of the PRISE was 0.88. The PRISE corrected item-total correlations were significantly high ranging from 0.86 to 0.89. A significant correlation was found between the PRISE-P and the ABEL-P total scores (r = 0.628). There was a high positive correlation between the PRISE total scores and the children's age (r = 0.791).

The PRISE-P is a valid and reliable tool to assess the pre-verbal vocalizations development in Persian speaking children aged 3 months and more.