EBLT comprises several test versions to adapt to individual patient clinical contexts and co-occurring conditions. Each has been created based on evidence-based principles and psychometric analysis.
EBLT has demonstrated excellent levels of sensitivity and specificity for PPA subtypes in a multi-center cross-sectional study, while its reliability has been evaluated via repeated measures design.
Brisbane Evidence-Based Language Test (EBLT)
The Brisbane EBLT brings together the best elements from past language assessments to offer a free, reliable, valid assessment of language abilities. Intended to be sensitive to aphasia symptoms, the Brisbane EBLT is easy to administer, score, interpret and is compatible with other measures for measuring aphasia.
Speech pathologists’ clinical knowledge and experience were utilized in the development of this assessment, while a survey of their current language assessment practices found that they preferred assessments that were comprehensive yet efficient with capacity for adding severity ratings.
As part of test development, acute stroke patients and their families provided feedback to ensure the assessment was culturally sensitive, with any items with potential bias being eliminated from consideration. Psychometric validation for the EBLT was achieved via multi-centre cross-sectional studies while its diagnostic validity (such as cut-off scores indicative of language impairment) was assessed against a gold-standard battery. Administering the Complete Test takes 45 minutes while four shorter (15-25 min in duration) tests focused on specific severity levels are also available for assessment.
The Sydney Evidence-Based Language Test (SYDBAT)
Even though there are three variants of PPA that vary considerably in terms of clinical presentation, underlying brain pathology, and clinical course; there are no valid short cognitive tests that distinguish among them. Early identification can improve access to care and treatments.
SYDBAT was developed to address this gap, providing neuropsychologists with an easy and quick way to score the performance of four language and speech tests for patients, record and export data quickly and easily.
As part of an effort to assess the validity of SYDBAT, a cross-sectional study with 54 healthy age and education matched participants, including MCI, lv-PPA, and sv-PPA patients was carried out. Impairment profiles in all three groups overlapped significantly on SYDBAT subtests except Naming and Word Comprehension subtests where semantically-based naming performance differed significantly among groups; discriminant function analysis with BNT/SAT yielded 61% classification accuracy in classification analysis using BNT/SAT tests for these analyses to test its validity in testing its classification accuracy of 61% classification accuracy.
The SYDBAT-NL
The SYDBAT-NL was developed as part of a PhD research project exploring contributions of dorsal and ventral neural pathways to speech in health and disease, specifically Dutch adaptation. Items no longer viable due to word length restrictions were replaced or modified when their semantic relationship to existing test items became unclear; for example the original test’s hippopotamus item was changed with Dutch for “crocodile”, (krokodil).
Convergent validity was assessed by comparing performance on the SYDBAT’s Naming, Word Comprehension and Semantic Association subtests with that on established language tests that measured an unrelated construct using Spearman’s rank-order correlation coefficients and discriminant function analysis. Results demonstrated moderate-to-good convergent validity in these areas for Naming, Word Comprehension and Semantic Association subtests; results also revealed moderate-to-good discriminant function analysis results for each subtest; results revealed moderate-to-good convergent validity for Naming Word Comprehension and Semantic Association subtests with respect to established language tests measuring different constructs which measured different constructs than established language tests examining different elements; results also provided useful adjuncts to clinicians in diagnosing PPA; early identification is key as it helps ensure faster, more effective care delivery than ever before for patients affected with frontotemporal degeneration dementias related behavioral variant frontotemporal degeneration dementias which often present later than expected and may help patients access faster care more efficiently than ever before.
SYDBAT for Primary Progressive Aphasia (PPA)
The SYDBAT is an easy and promising screen for assessing single-word language processes that could aid in differential diagnosis of PPA syndromes. This tool may enhance differential diagnosis in memory clinics and may eventually aid clinicians with clinical trial planning.
The authors of this study utilized the Sydney Language Battery (SYDBAT) to assess a large cohort of healthy age and education-matched controls and PPA patients (nfvPPA = 20, logopenic variant PPA = 22; semantic variant PPA = 57). Furthermore, they assessed some patients using its Dutch equivalent, SYDBAT-NL.
Researchers discovered that SYDBAT performance profiles of both svPPA and nfvPPA patients overlapped significantly; however, those in the former group performed worse on Naming and Semantic Association subtests than their counterparts from the latter. Furthermore, those from svPPA showed decreased scores on repetition subtests which measure both articulatory and phonological short-term memory – likely the primary cognitive mechanism contributing to repetition deficits associated with this syndrome.
