Validation of the pediatric Radboud Dysarthria Assessment.
Marieke Ruessink, Lenie van den Engel-Hoek, Marjo van Gerven and 3 others
PMID 34744057WHAT IT FOUND
The pediatric Radboud Dysarthria Assessment is feasible for children aged 5 to 18 and shows good reliability.
It can be completed in under 20 minutes. Severity scores correlate strongly with other communication measures, helping therapists quantify dysarthria impact on daily speech.
Key findings
01The assessment was completed in under 20 minutes for all participants, with only four children unable to perform maximum performance tasks due to very severe dysarthria.
02Inter-rater reliability for severity scales was high (ICC 0.83-0.93) among experienced therapists and those trained with a two-hour session.
03Severity scores at the activity level correlated strongly with established communication scales like the Viking Speech Scale (r = 0.92) and the Communication Function Classification System (r = 0.87).
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
The sample size was small (35 children). The cohort was dominated by children with cerebral palsy (57%), so validity for other dysarthria etiologies is less certain. Confidence intervals for some reliability and validity measures were wide, indicating uncertainty. The assessment requires training for reliable scoring, especially for the function level scale.
Declared interests
No specific conflicts of interest or funding sources were declared in the provided text.
The easy way to misread this
Do not assume the p-RDA is valid for all pediatric dysarthria etiologies without further research. The study primarily involved children with cerebral palsy, and the authors note that reliability and validity in non-CP groups and younger children require confirmation.