Translating the Stuttering Severity Instrument (SSI-3) into Persian: Response to Karimi, Nilipour, Shafiei and Howell

Karimi, Nilipour, Shafiei and Howell have raised some issues in regards to a study of which we were authors (Bakhtiar, Seifpanahi, Hossein, Ghanadzade & Packman, 2010). In that study, we reported the translation of the Stuttering Severity Instrument-3 (SSI-3) into Persian and reported its reliability when used with 12 Persian speaking preschool children who stutter, in Iran. Karimi et al. criticize our methods and claim that we did not specify that the translated test be used with preschoolers. In this response, we maintain that their criticisms of our methods are largely unfounded, especially the suggestion that we did not follow the WHO guidelines for translating questionnaires in our translation procedure. In addition, we show that we did in fact stipulate in our paper that the Persian SSI-3 should be used with preschoolers and that Karimi et al. misquoted us in their claim that we did not.