| The purpose of this study was to explore whether the Sensory Profile (SP) can be adapted for use with Israeli children aged three to ten as an assessment of sensory processing abilities. Specifically, the study examined the linguistic equivalency across the Hebrew and the English languages, the norm equivalency, and the structural equivalency across typical Israeli and American children.; The back-translation and the bilingual methods were used to examine the language equivalency. Eleven evaluators indicated whether the back-translated items were similar to the original items; the percentage of agreement among evaluators was examined. Additionally, 58 bilingual parents completed the Hebrew and the English versions of the SP on two occasions; response inconsistency between the two versions was analyzed. To examine the norm equivalency, the performance of 714 Israeli children on the SP was compared to the performance of American children. A one-sample t-test was computed for each age group. To examine the structural equivalency, the eight-factor structure was tested within the framework of confirmatory factor analysis.; Results revealed that the Hebrew translation of the SP was accurate. Inconsistencies in response found in some items might have been a result of different connotative meaning in Hebrew and in English, or inherent ambiguity regardless of the language. Second, the performance of the Israeli children was significantly different from the performance of American children in some age groups; the magnitude of the difference, however, was not large. While the Israeli children scored lower, the pattern of behaviors of the Israeli and American children was similar. Third, the initial model, constructed based on the exploratory factor analytic study on American children, was not confirmed with the data on the Israeli children. The modified model, which included cross-loadings and correlated errors showed an acceptable fit. While there was evidence that the items in the Hebrew version correlated with their corresponding factors, thus providing support for the eight-factor structure, the pattern of correlation among the factors did not totally support the conceptual framework underlying sensory processing. Further studies are needed to establish the construct validity of the Hebrew version of the SP. |
