Development and validation of dichotic double digit test in Kannada

Objective: The main objective of the study was to develop, validate and construct norms for a double dichotic digit test in the language ‘Kannada’ in normal healthy adults, for both free and forced recall conditions. Method: This study was carried out in 2 phases. Phase 1 involved the development of the dichotic tests and phase 2 consisted of validation, data collection and normative estimation on 70 normal right-handed adults (18–60 years) and 50 normal children (10–15 years) in both free recall and forced attention condition. Results: The results indicated no significant difference between scores obtained on the three separate lists, in the free recall condition (p = 0.189). There was a significant difference between the right and the left ear scores in all three lists, which indicates a right ear advantage (p = 0.001). In the forced recall condition, there was no significant difference between the right and left ear scores, across the three lists. Conclusion: The current study has provided a content-validated double dichotic digit test with normative data in Kannada. Overall the test evaluates right ear advantage with good accuracy.