The patients with chronic post-stroke aphasia were tested 3 times each and scored independently by 2 raters to establish test-retest and inter-rater reliability. The QAB was administered to 28 individuals with acute stroke and aphasia, 25 individuals with acute stroke but no aphasia, 16 individuals with chronic post-stroke aphasia, and 14 healthy controls. From the eight subtests, eight summary measures are derived, which constitute a multidimensional profile of language function, quantifying strengths and weaknesses across core language domains. The QAB is made up of eight subtests, each comprising sets of items that probe different language domains, vary in difficulty, and are scored with a graded system to maximize the informativeness of each item. Aphasiology, 34(12).This paper describes a quick aphasia battery (QAB) that aims to provide a reliable and multidimensional assessment of language function in about a quarter of an hour, bridging the gap between comprehensive batteries that are time-consuming to administer, and rapid screening instruments that provide limited detail regarding individual profiles of deficits. Kertesz, 2020, The Western Aphasia Battery: A systematic review of research and clinical applications. Also, as recent studies have shown, comprehensive aphasia rehabilitation involves engagement with issues beyond impairments, requiring attention also to such issues as personality, psychology, support networks, living environment, and more that is unaddressed in the WAB.įor further reading: A. Kertesz notes some of these in his summary, such as variability of interrater reliability in assessing spontaneous speech. Over time, as technologies have matured to provide ever higher-quality neuroimaging capabilities, the WAB has also been found to hold promise in brain-behavior research.Īs with all instruments, the WAB has limitations. It covers key competency areas relevant to aphasia categorization, assigns its recipients to aphasia diagnostic categories, and – in its calculated Aphasia Quotient – provides a convenient overall metric of severity of aphasia involvement. It has been psychometrically characterized and documented as valid, reliable, and informatively sensitive to change. Both researchers and clinicians find it to be practical, straightforward to administer, usefully structured, and of good breadth and depth. He then summarized the relevant articles, conducted content analyses, and systematized the results for reporting by key topic areas.įindings show that the WAB is one of the most widely used instruments across domains of aphasia activity. The scope encompassed all major areas of use – i.e., aphasia definition, treatment, recovery, neuroimaging, etc. To find articles for inclusion in this review, the author searched major publication databases, including the National Library of Medicine database (Pub Med) and the Cochrane database, for ones that mentioned WAB in their abstracts or titles, and he also flagged articles that used terms such as ‘ stroke aphasia’, ‘ primary progressive aphasia’, ‘aphasia tests’, and ‘fronto-temproal dementia’ for review inclusion. The goals of the review were to: (1) determine the scope of the WAB’s clinical and research usages (2) determine the goals of those applications and (3) characterize how WAB uses have evolved since its introduction in 1974. Andrew Kertesz MD & Professor Emeritus, Department of Clinical Neurology, University of Western Ontario (Canada), and creator of the Western Aphasia Battery (WAB), has published an article reviewing the applications of this standardized, impairment-level aphasia assessment instrument.