Cross-cultural adaptation of the new Reynell developmental language scales to Brazilian Portuguese

Translation and cross-cultural adaptation of The New Reynell Developmental Language Scales (NRDLS) to Portuguese spoken in Brazil.

We followed the steps recommended in the manual Multilingual Toolkit da NRDLS: translation of the test, adaptation of items from the scales, and use of NRDLS in a pilot study with Brazilian children. It was included a back-translation and analysis by a group of specialists in the area that helped to review the adapted version. A quantitative descriptive analysis of results from the pilot group was performed, and we used a one-way repeated measures ANOVA.

The Brazilian Portuguese version of the NRDLS seems very similar to the original NRDLS in terms of conceptual equivalence. The children understood well the translated and adapted words, and they had more difficulty in the last sessions. Some of the mistakes made by the children helped us to adapt specific items for a better evaluation of the abilities of Brazilian children.

The suggestions in the Multilingual Toolkit, the input from the group of specialists, and the experience with the children in the pilot group helped the adaptation of the NRDLS to Brazilian Portuguese. The adapted version of NRDLS was effective, it reflected the gradual evolution of complexity in the scales. We suggest the application of the adapted version in a large group of children with normal development to validate it.