Montreal-Toulouse Language Assessment Battery for aphasia: Validity and reliability evidence

BACKGROUND: In Brazil, no standardized instruments are available to assess language in patients with aphasia. OBJECTIVE: The aim of the current study was to search for reliability and validity evidence for the Montreal-Toulouse Language Assessment Battery (MTL-BR). METHODS: The sample was composed of 537 adults, of whom 463 were healthy individuals and 74 had neurological lesions (25 participants had right hemisphere brain damage, 21 had left hemisphere damage (LHD) with aphasia and 28 had LHD without aphasia). Reliability was assessed by internal consistency (Cronbach's alpha) and test-retest analyses. Test-retest reliability was calculated using the Pearson correlation coefficient, and a repeated measures analysis of variance, with years of education as a covariate. Construct validity was verified by correlations between scores in MTL-BR subtest and similar tasks from other language assessment instruments. RESULTS: Internal consistency was satisfactory (Cronbach's alpha between 0.79 and 0.90), as were correlations between test and retest scores (mean 0.52), and between the MTL-BR and scores in similar instruments. CONCLUSIONS: The present results suggested that the MTL-BR battery had adequate reliability and validity as a method for diagnosing and monitoring aphasia.