| Substance abuse and dependence are assumed to occur at the same frequency in hearing and Deaf communities, although screening instruments for substance use disorders have not yet been created and validated in American Sign Language (ASL). The aim of this study was to create and validate a new substance abuse screening tool in ASL.; In order to create a valid and appealing screening tool for Deaf populations, the researcher created a pool of items, and collected feedback from nationally-known experts in Deafness and substance abuse. The final item list was translated into ASL by an Austin team of experts, and a native signer was filmed signing the items. The video clips were matched with the web page to create the instrument, which was put onto a laptop computer.; The final validation of 131 Deaf individuals across five sites in the United States indicated a Cronbach's alpha of .87 for ten items. Convergent validity was established using the Major Depression section of Module A of the SCID. A significant relationship was found between major depression and score (r = .305, p = .000). Discriminant validity was assessed by examining the relationship between age and score and, as hoped, no significant correlation was found (r = -.079, p = .367). Further evidence of convergent construct validity was evidenced by the correlation between score and diagnosis. There is a significant correlation on the DAAD for individuals who have an alcohol dependence diagnosis (r = .555, p = .000, alpha = .01) or a substance dependence diagnosis (r = .569, p = .000, alpha = .01). Known-groups validity was evidenced via using ANOVA on the transformed data, with the Eta statistic as the validity coefficient. Eta was significant at the .05 level (Eta = .626, Eta 2 = .392), indicating a strong association.; The result is that a culturally sensitive screening will be available identify Deaf individuals who have substance dependence disorders. The instrument may also help researchers who are trying to estimate the number of Deaf people who have substance dependence disorders or are interested in screening Deaf individuals for substance dependence disorders for other research purposes. |
