Assessment of localization ability – A subjective tool in Kannada Version

Abstract

Introduction: Majority of the audiology clinics are not equipped to assess the localization ability due to the problem in availability of instrument, infrastructure and or cost involvement. Thus, questions from standardized tools sensitive to Indian scenario were selected to assess the localization ability. The objectives of the study were to a) develop Kannada localization questionnaire b) validate the developed questionnaire using degree of error (DOE) and c) investigate the relationship between localization ability from questionnaire and DOE from localization task. Materials and Method: Two experiments were carried out in this study. In Experiment -1 questionnaire was developed by translation, reverse translation and rated for goodness of questionnaire. The developed questionnaire was administered on 103 participants of different age groups from 11-70 years. In Experiment -2 using localization task an aggregated degree of error was measured for the target test stimuli (truck and automobile horns) in the presence of traffic noise at 65 dB SPL and 75 dB SPL. Results: On factor analysis a factorability of correlation suggested 14 of the 17 questions correlated well above 0.3. The questionnaire developed has Cronbach's alpha of 0.78 for 10 items and 0.53 for 4 items. In addition a significant reduction in localization ability on questionnaire and increased error on localization task were observed with advanced in age. Further a moderate negative correlation was noticed between localization ability scores and degree of error. Conclusions: The developed questionnaire can be effectively used in a clinic where there is an unavailability of localization experiment test setup.