Article

The aim of this study was to scrutinize the Assisting Hand Assessment (AHA)
version 4.4 for possible improvements and to evaluate the psychometric properties
regarding internal scale validity and aspects of reliability of a revised version
of the AHA. METHOD: In collaboration with experts, scoring criteria were changed
for four items, and one fully new item was constructed.
Twenty-two original, one
new, and four revised items were scored for 164 assessments of children with
unilateral cerebral palsy aged 18 months to 12 years. Rasch measurement analysis
was used to evaluate internal scale validity by exploring rating-scale
functioning, item and person goodness-of-fit, and principal component analysis.
Targeting and scale reliability were also evaluated.
RESULTS: After removal of
misfitting items, a 20-item scale showed satisfactory goodness-of-fit.
Unidimensionality was confirmed by principal component analysis. The rating scale
functioned well for the 20 items, and the item difficulty was well suited to the
ability level of the sample. The person reliability coefficient was 0.98,
indicating high separation ability of the scale. A conversion table of AHA scores
between the previous version (4.4) and the new version (5.0) was constructed.
INTERPRETATION: The new,
20-item version of the Kids-AHA (version 5.0),
demonstrated excellent internal scale validity, suggesting improved
responsiveness to changes and shortened scoring time. For comparison of scores
from version 4.4 to 5.0, a transformation table is presented.
CI - (c) 2015 Mac Keith Press.

Langue : ANGLAIS