Development and Simulation Testing of a Computerized Adaptive Version of the Philadelphia Naming Test

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to develop a computerized adaptive test (CAT) version of the Philadelphia Naming Test (PNT; Roach, Schwartz, Martin, Grewal, & Brecher, 1996), to reduce test length while maximizing measurement precision. This article is a direct extension of a companion article (Fergadiotis, Kellough, & Hula, 2015), in which we fitted the PNT to a 1-parameter logistic item-response-theory model and examined the validity and precision of the resulting item parameter and ability score estimates. Method: Using archival data collected from participants with aphasia, we simulated two PNT-CAT versions and two previously published static PNT short forms, and compared the resulting ability score estimates to estimates obtained from the full 175-item PNT. We used a jackknife procedure to maintain independence of the samples used for item estimation and CAT simulation. Results: The PNT-CAT recovered full PNT scores with equal or better accuracy than the static short forms. Measurement precision was also greater for the PNT-CAT than the static short forms, though comparison of adaptive and static nonoverlapping alternate forms showed minimal differences between the two approaches. Conclusion: These results suggest that CAT assessment of naming in aphasia has the potential to reduce test burden while maximizing the accuracy and precision of score estimates.