The Dutch Main Concept Analysis: Translation and Establishment of Normative Data

Abstract

Purpose The main concept analysis (MCA; Kong, 2009) quantifies the effectiveness and efficiency of information transfer during verbal discourse by means of four sets of sequential pictorial stimuli. This test was originally developed for a Cantonese-speaking population. The main goals of this study were (a) to translate and adapt the MCA to Dutch; (b) to establish normative data for healthy native Dutch-speaking adults; (c) to assess the effect of age, education level, and gender on MCA outcome; and (d) to establish inter- and intrarater reliability of the Dutch MCA. Method Language samples were collected from 60 healthy native Dutch speakers, equally recruited in different age (20–39 years, 40–59 years, 60–79 years) and education (middle and highly educated) categories through administration of the MCA. Utterances produced by at least 75% of the participants were included as a main concept in the Dutch MCA. Subsequently, age-specific normative data were established for each of the MCA parameters. Finally, an ICC was calculated in order to verify inter- and intrarater reliability of the Dutch MCA. Results The translated MCA consisted of 19 main concepts. Age-specific normative data were obtained. Both age and education level had a significant effect on MCA outcome. Information transfer in elderly was both less effectively and efficiently compared to young- and middle-aged adults. In addition, highly educated participants transferred information less efficiently compared to middle educated participants. Based on inter- and intrarater reliability measures, the Dutch MCA proved to be a reliable measuring instrument. Conclusions The MCA was translated to Dutch, and age-specific normative data were established for a healthy, Dutch-speaking population. The Dutch MCA is a reliable tool for eliciting and quantifying discourse production. Validation of the test for people with aphasia is necessary in order for the test to be useful in a clinical practice.

Adaptation and Reliability of the Cinderella Story Retell Task in Canadian French Persons Without Brain Injury

“…Namely, they were developed for: the Cookie Theft picture description task (BDAE;Goodglass et al, 2000) for English (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993b) and Japanese speakers (Yazu et al, 2022); Cinderella story retell task, the Broken Window picture sequence narrative and the Peanut Butter and Jelly sandwich procedural tasks (Richardson & Dalton, 2016a) as well as the picture description scene of the cat in the tree and sequence-pictures description of the refused umbrella for English speakers; four sets of sequential stimuli for Cantonese speakers (Kong, 2009), and adapted to Taiwanese Mandarin speakers (Kong & Yeh, 2015), American English speakers (Kong et al, 2016), Japonese speakers (Yazu et al, 2022), Spanish speakers , Dutch speakers (Criel et al, 2021); a set of four discourse tasks, two picture scenes and two picture sequences, developed by Nicholas & Brookshire (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993b) in young English-Spanish bilinguals (Rivera et al, 2018); the Cat in the tree (Nicholas & Brookshire, 1993b) for English speakers (Hameister & Nickels, 2018;.…”

“…Indeed, the scarcity of discourse protocols and normative data, including psychometric properties, was identified as a barrier to discourse assessment in non-dominant languages. Although using other tasks, the Main Concept Analysis (Kong, 2009) has been adapted, along with its respective stimuli, from Cantonese to Taiwanese Mandarin speakers (Kong & Yeh, 2015), American English speakers (Kong et al, 2016), Japanese speakers (Yazu et al, 2022), Spanish speakers and Dutch speakers (Criel et al, 2021). However, no such MC list exist in Canadian French.…”

“…MCA of the Cinderella story retell task was developed originally for American English speakers (Richardson & Dalton, 2016b), and cultural adaptation requires that the target population shares a similar cultural background with the initial sample. Cultural and linguistic sound adaptations usually involve modifications, i.e., developing an entirely new task (Kong, 2009) or refining the scoring protocol (Criel et al, 2021;Yazu et al, 2022). Considering that Canadian French speakers share a similar cultural background with American English speakers regarding Cinderella, an adaptation was made by refining the scoring protocol.…”