Adaptation and Validation of the Home and School Forms of the Sensory Processing Measure-Preschool (SPM-P) for Use in Ethiopia

Abstract

Despite the encouraging trend in public awareness of the need for psychological support, there are indications that psychologists in Ethiopia face a wide range of challenges to keep up with the growing demand. One gap concerns the availability of measures. As part of the needed effort to bridge this gap, the present study attempts to adapt and validate an existing measure, the Sensory Processing Measure Preschool (SPMP), for use in the Ethiopian context. The study selected 676 participants who were typically developing children and 29 children with special needs aged between two and five years and selected from kindergartens in Addis Ababa. The SPM-P is a rating scale with home and school forms, each containing 75 items which are completed by the parent/caregiver and teacher/day-care provider respectively. Stratified random sampling and availability sampling techniques were employed to select the typically developing group and children with special needs, respectively. The results indicated good reliability coefficients for both forms (Home form, .93 and School form, .92) of the SPMP Amharic Version (SPMP-AV) and for the subscales (ranging from .60 to .90). Besides, SPMP-AV significantly discriminated between typically-developing children and children with special needs (p< .001), indicating the scale’s discriminant validity. The scale’s convergent validity was further established. Overall, SPMP-AV demonstrated good psychometric characteristics; with careful use, it can play a significant role in the development of evidence-based practices to address sensory processing disorders in Ethiopia.