Reliability and Validity Analyses of the Korean version of Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test in Brain-Damaged Patients

Background & Objectives: Early identification, diagnosis, and treatment of aphasia are important steps in maximizing rehabilitation gains. A routine screening test is an invaluable tool in the identification and appropriate referral of patients with potential communication problems. Nevertheless, there is nostandardized aphasia screening test available in Korea. The purpose of this study was to test the reliability and validity of the Korean version of the Frenchay Aphasia Screening Test (K-FAST). Methods: We used test data from 50 aphasic patients and 42 non-aphasic, brain-damaged patients. An internal consistency and intra-/inter-rater reliabilities of the K-FAST were analyzed by the Cronbach's ? value and Kendall's coefficient of concordance, respectively. A constructive validity through correlations between the total and subtest scores and a concurrent validity through correlations between the scores of the K-FAST and K-WAB were measured. The diagnostic accuracy of the K-FAST in brain-damaged patients was measured by the area under the ROC curve, while the sensitivity and specificity were evaluated using the cut-off value of the normal data. Results: Results obtained in the present study were as follows: indices of the internal consistency and intra-/inter-rater reliabilities of the K-FAST showed good reliabilities. There were significantly strong correlations between the total and subtest scores of the K-FAST, and between the scores of K-WAB and K-FAST. For detecting aphasia among brain-damaged patients, the sensitivity was high while the specificity was low. Discussion & Conclusion: Our results show that K-FAST could be a reliable and valid tool for screening Korean Aphasics. However, the specificity of the K-FAST appeared to be adversely affected by the characteristics of the brain-damaged patients.