Department of Occupational Therapy, Faculty of Social Welfare & Health Sciences, University of Haifa, Mount Carmel, Haifa 31950, Israel.
Res Dev Disabil. 2010 May-Jun;31(3):656-63. doi: 10.1016/j.ridd.2010.01.004. Epub 2010 Feb 11.
Cognitive performance is essential for children's functioning and may also predict school readiness. The suitability of Western standardized assessments for cognitive performance among children from different cultures needs to be elaborated. This study referred to the existence of differences in cognitive performance between and within children from the middle-east-Israeli and Palestinian on the Loewenstein Occupational Therapy Cognitive Assessment (LOTCA), by elucidating cultural effects on the construct validity of the LOTCA using factor analysis. Participants included 101 Israeli and 125 Palestinian children from kindergarten, first and second grade who underwent the LOTCA. Factor analysis revealed four factors underlying items on the LOTCA, explaining the differences found between Israeli and Palestinian children in most of LOTCA subtests. Culture may affect the construct validity of the LOTCA and may explain the difference in performance between both cultural groups. LOTCA's validity as well as the validity of other instruments on which norms and decisions regarding the child's development and performance are made should be further evaluated among children from different cultural backgrounds.
认知表现对于儿童的功能至关重要，也可能预测其入学准备情况。需要详细说明西方标准化评估工具对于来自不同文化的儿童认知表现的适用性。本研究通过使用因子分析来阐明文化对 Loewenstein 职业治疗认知评估（LOTCA）结构效度的影响，指出了中东-以色列和巴勒斯坦儿童之间以及内部认知表现存在差异。参与者包括来自幼儿园、一年级和二年级的 101 名以色列儿童和 125 名巴勒斯坦儿童，他们接受了 LOTCA 测试。因子分析揭示了 LOTCA 项目背后的四个因素，解释了 LOTCA 大多数子测试中以色列和巴勒斯坦儿童之间发现的差异。文化可能会影响 LOTCA 的结构效度，并解释两个文化群体之间表现的差异。应进一步评估来自不同文化背景的儿童中 LOTCA 及其用于制定儿童发展和表现规范和决策的其他工具的有效性。
