A psychometric study of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children in the Chinese setting

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To explore the psychometric properties of the Test of Everyday Attention for Children (TEA-Ch) in the context of a Chinese setting. METHODS: Confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to examine the construct validity of the Chinese version of the TEA-Ch among a group of 232 children without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Test-retest reliability was tested on a random sub-sample of 20 children at a 4-week interval. Clinical discrimination was also examined by comparing children with and without ADHD (22 in each group) on the performances of the TEA-Ch. RESULTS: The current Chinese sample demonstrated a three-factor solution for attentional performance among children without ADHD, namely selective attention, executive control/switch, and sustained attention (chi(2)(24)=34.56; RMSEA=.044; p=.075). Moreover, the whole test demonstrated acceptable test-retest reliability at a 4-week interval among a small sub-sample. Children with ADHD performed significantly more poorly than healthy controls in most of the subtests of the TEA-Ch. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the present study demonstrate that the test items remain useful in China, a culture very different from that in which the test originated. Finally, the TEA-Ch also presents several advantages when compared to other conventional objective measures of attention.