Validity and reliability study of the Turkish version of focus on the outcomes of communication under six -34 (FOCUS-34)

Speech and language disorders, which are frequently seen in the preschool period, can negatively affect children's communicative participation skills. FOCUS-34 is a valid and reliable scale that evaluates communicative participation in preschool children with speech and language disorders. In this study, it was aimed to establish the Turkish version of FOCUS-34 and to investigate its validity and reliability. 175 children who language disorder, speech sound disorder and fluency disorder (aged 20-72 months) and their parents were included in the study. Parents were asked to fill in the Demographic Information Form, FOCUS-34-Turkish Version (FOCUS-34-TR) scale and Ages & Stages Questionnaires: Social-Emotional (ASQ-SE). Construct validity methods, convergent and divergent validity, were used to evaluate its validity, internal consistency and test-retest reliability methods were used to evaluate its reliability. Cronbach's Alpha value for the FOCUS-34-TR scale was found to be .97 for the total and Cronbach's Alpha values for the subscales were found between .61 and .94. For test-retest reliability, 46 parents were asked to refill the FOCUS-34-TR scale one week later; the value obtained in the test-retest analysis was found to be .95. The correlations between the FOCUS-34-TR total score and its subscales were found to be between .77 and .90. For convergent and divergent validity test; the correlations between the FOCUS-34-TR scale and the ASQ-SE were examined and a moderately statistically significant and negative correlation was found between the FOCUS-34-TR scale and the ASQ-SE, and between the ASQ-SE Communication and Interaction with People subdomains. As a result of the research, it was thought that the FOCUS-34-TR scale is a valid and reliable tool to measure communicative participation in preschool children with speech and language disorders.