The Akan Aphasia Language Test (AALT)

Background: The comprehension and production abilities of individuals with aphasia are evaluated by means of linguistic tests normed to identify patterns of strengths and difficulties. There are no culturally relevant standardised tests in Ghana to evaluate language in Akan-speaking individuals with aphasia.Aim: The study aimed to develop and examine a culturally and linguistically relevant aphasia language assessment tasks in Akan to conduct background aphasia language assessment in Akan research.Method: The Akan Aphasia Language Test (AALT) was designed and administered to 15 individuals with varying profiles of aphasia and 15 non-brain-damaged controls matched on age and sex. The test comprised single word comprehension for verbs and nouns, sentence comprehension and object and action naming subtests in Akan.  Stimuli were images designed using AI.Results: All subtests showed significant differences between individuals with aphasia and non-brain-damaged controls. Individuals with aphasia demonstrated greater difficulty in their comprehension of single word verbs than nouns, comprehension of active sentences, object cleft sentences, postpositions, comparatives, relative clauses, noun sentence structures than plurality and adjectival sentences. In the production tasks, individuals with aphasia demonstrated greater difficulty in naming actions than objects.Conclusion: The availability of this newly developed tool in Akan bridges the gap in the lack of culturally and linguistically relevant tools for the Akan-speaking population. Although the test was developed for research purposes, it has the potential to be used clinically by speech and language therapists as a convenient, quick, easy-to-administer tool in the assessment and identification of aphasia and specific linguistic areas of strength and weakness, helping to inform treatment plans and their evaluation.