Adapting the western aphasia battery revised for Brazil: concurrent validity with ACE-R in primary progressive aphasia assessment
Year: 2025
Type: conference-paper
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Background: The Western Aphasia Battery-revised (WAB-R) is a comprehensive tool for assessing aphasia, widely used and recommended. The WAB-R is currently being validated for Brazilian culture (WAB-R-Br). The battery provides an index of aphasia severity, the aphasia quotient (AQ), a weighted score derived from all oral subtests. Objectives: (1) To present preliminary data on the application of the WAB-R-Br in Brazilian patients with primary progressive aphasia (PPA); (2) To analyse evidence of concurrent criterion validity of the WAB-R-Br. Methods: The local ethics committee approved the study, and the author formally authorized the adaptation. Eleven PPA patients (3 semantic; 4 nonfluent; 3 logopenic; and 1 mixed variant) were assessed with the WAB-R-Br and the ACE-R, a brief cognitive tool. Pearson’s correlation analysis examined relationships between AQ-Br and ACE-R subtests. Results: A moderate positive correlation (r=0.695, p<0.018) was found between AQ-Br and ACE-R total score. AQ-Br strongly correlated with ACE-R Fluency subscore (r=0.745, p<0.01). Discussion: PPA is a progressive cognitive syndrome that affects primarily language skills. With its the progression, other cognitive domains are affected. ACE-R assesses distinct cognitive domains, including language. The moderate positive correlation between AQ-Br and ACE-R total score indicates that WAB-R-Br has good evidence of concurrent validity. The strong correlation between AQ-Br and Fluency suggest that verbal fluency may be a significant predictor of aphasia severity in PPA. The low AQ-Br and ACE-R Language correlation reflects the small sample size, especially of semantic PPA patients, as ACE-R emphasizes semantic memory. Conclusion: WAB-R-Br showed good evidence of concurrent validity.
DOI: 10.5327/rpda25115
Institution: Universidade de São Paulo
Language: English
Subfield: Psychiatry and Mental health
Field: Medicine
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7127567685