Development of psychometrically matched English and Spanish language neuropsychological tests for older persons

Item response theory (IRT) methods were used to develop a neuropsychologica l test battery with matched English and Spanish language forms. Candidate i tems for 12 scales measuring core neuropsychological abilities were generat ed and administered to 200 community-dwelling elderly participants tested i n Spanish and 208 tested in English. IRT methods were used to eliminate lin guistically biased items and refine scales to assess broad ability ranges. Reasonably good psychometric matching of scales was achieved within and acr oss English and Spanish language forms. All scales were sensitive to cognit ive impairment as measured by the Mini-Mental State Examination (MMSE), wit h highly similar relationships between scale scores and MMSE across English and Spanish groups. The outcome supports the use of IRT methods in cross-c ultural and multilingual test development and indicates that this strategy has potential for future neuropsychological test development.