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Development and Validation the Mobile Toolbox (MTB) Spelling Test
E LaForte1, S R Young, E M Dworak
1Stephanie Ruth Young, 625 N. Michigan Ave., 21st Floor Chicago, IL 60611, United States.
Background:
Spelling assessments can provide a valuable marker of cognitive change in Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (ADRD) and play an important role in ADRD research. However, most commercial assessments are not well-suited to the needs of researchers or participants; they are expensive and often require face-to-face administration by a trained examiner. To help overcome these barriers and foster progress in ADRD research, the National Institute on Aging (NIA)-funded Mobile Toolbox (MTB) offers a library of cognitive measures that can be self-administered remotely on a participant's own smartphone, including a brand-new Spelling test.
Objective:
The goal of this paper is to describe the design, piloting, calibration, and validation of the MTB Spelling test.
Design:
We describe a pilot study, calibration study, and three validation studies, all of which use a cross-sectional design.
Setting:
The pilot study, calibration study, and validation studies 2 and 3 were conducted remotely, while validation study 1 was conducted in the lab.
Participants:
Participants for all of the studies were recruited from the general population by a thirdparty market research firm and the samples were stratified by age, gender, race, ethnicity, and education to represent the U.S.
Population:
The pilot sample included 1,950 participants and the calibration study included 1335 participants over the age of 8. Validation study 1 included 92 participants ages 20 to 84, validation study 2 included 1021 participants ages 18 to 90, and validation study 3 included 168 participants ages 28 to 87.
Measurements:
Participants in each of the studies completed the MTB Spelling test. Participants in validation studies 1 and 2 completed measures from the NIH Toolbox including Oral Reading Recognition as a measure of convergent validity, and Visual Reasoning and the Rey Auditory Verbal Learning as measures of divergent validity. As an additional measure of convergent validity, participants in study 1 also completed the Spelling subtest from the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test, 4th Edition.
Results:
The MTB Spelling test demonstrated evidence of internal consistency (r=.79 to .83) convergent validity (r=.56 to .81, p<.01), discriminant validity (r = .23 to .36, p <.01), test-retest reliability ( ICC=.63 ), and correlations with normal cognitive aging (r = -.06 to -.04, p >.01).
Conclusion:
Findings suggest the MTB Spelling test is a reliable and valid measure of English spelling abilities in general population samples, and has potential in ADRD research.
