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Cultural and ethnic influences on recognition memory test performance
714
Abstracts from the 19th Annual Meeting
ment of stratified data for age, education, and language dominance. This test is proposed as a useful measure of learning with the Hispanic population in the United States. Its normative data makes it highly accessible to clinical and research settings.
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Marquez, M., Matos, L., Salvatierra, J .L., Weekes, V. A., & Ostrosky, F. Linguistic Organization in Verbal Fluency Tests Among English and Spanish Speakers and Spanish-English Bilinguals. The influence of language characteristics on verbal fluency test performance has received limited attention in the neuropsychology literature. The aim of this study was to examine the linguistic organization on phonemic verbal fluency tests in English and Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals. Eighty-two, right-handed participants (28 males and 54 females) with a mean age of 61.76 (SD = 9.30; range, 50-84) and a mean educational level of 14.8 years (SD = 3.6; range, 2-23) were selected. Forty-five of the subjects were English monolinguals, 18 were Spanish monolinguals, and 19 were Spanish-English bilinguals. Verbal fluency was tested by asking subjects to generate words within phonemic categories F, A, and S. The bilinguals' test scores were compared to English monolinguals' and Spanish monolinguals' test scores. Results demonstrated no differences in test scores between bilingual and monolingual subjects. However, a significant difference was observed in the type of words that were selected by each linguistic group. While Spanish speakers used meaningful words (e.g., nouns, verbs, and adjectives), English speakers frequently included grammatical words (e.g., prepositions). As expected, bilinguals were somewhere in between, when performing either in Spanish or in English. Results point to some differences in the lexical organization of English and Spanish. Seemingly, bilinguals have rather idiosyncratic types of lexical organization, as a result of using two different lexical systems.
Corona-LoMonaco, M. E., Pont6n, M. O., Herrera, L. P., Gonzalez, J., & Herrera, S. The Impact of Language and Culture on a Neuropsychological Screening Battery for Hispanics. Due to the lack of appropriate tests and norms for use with the Hispanic population in the United States, misdiagnosis of cognitive functioning is very common in research and clinical settings. The current paper presents both normative data and an assessment model to be used with Hispanic populations. One hundred Hispanic subjects were tested with the Neuropsychological Screening Battery for Hispanics (NeSBHIS), the Woodcock-Munoz Language Proficiency Battery and standardized measures of acculturation, cultural identity, and acculturative stress. It was hypothesized that in addition to education, high acculturation, cultural identity, and language proficiency will impact neuropsychological scores positively. The current results provide a unique contribution to the assessment of Hispanic patients by providing preliminary normative data that controls for acculturative stress and language proficiency. The data and the model are discussed as useful clinical tools for the neuropsychological assessment of the Hispanic population and the categorization of language dominance groups.
O'Bryant, S. E., Hiisabeck, R., & Gouvier, W. D. Cultural and Ethnic Influences on Recognition Memory Test Performance. The influence of culture and ethnicity on neuropsychological test performance has received little attention from researchers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of these variables on Recognition Memory Test (RMT) performance. Specifically, it was hypothesized that persons of non-Anglo descent would perform as
Abstracts from the 19th Annual Meeting
715
well as persons of Anglo descent on RMT Words, but not on RMT Faces. Participants were 30 Caucasian and 30 African American undergraduates at a large southern university. No participant reported current or past psychological or neurological problems. All participants were administered the RMT using the standard procedure. There were no significant differences between the groups on RMT Words or RMT Faces, suggesting minimal, if any, influence of culture or ethnicity on RMT performance in this sample. In fact, African-American participants obtained a slightly higher average score on RMT Faces than Caucasian participants (i.e., 37.97 vs. 38.43). Inexplicably, the average scores obtained by these undergraduates on RMT Faces fell below the 10th percentile for persons their age (a score of 37 is at the 5th percentile). This finding suggests reexamination of current norms for RMT Faces.
Dornheim, L., Espe-Pfeifer, P., Mahrou, M. L., Devaraju-Backhaus, S., & Golden, C. Gender, Ethnicity, and Handedness Regarding LNNB-III Performance in Children. When validating a neuropsychological instrument, performance differences between gender, ethnic origin, as well as handedness have to be considered paramount, since it is well-known that there are substantial differences on some tests due to these variables. In a mixed sample of 365 children with neurological and psychiatric disorders [age range, 3-18 years; mean age = 9.61, SD = 3.23; 271 males, 94 females; 184 Caucasians, 123 African Americans, 36 Latino-Hispanics, 20 other, 2 undocumented; 317 right-handed, 41 left-handed, 7 mixed; DSM-IV-diagnosis (with double diagnosis): 34 conduct disorder, 41 oppositional defiant disorder, 2 intermittent explosive disorder, 11 encopresis, 21 enuresis, 6 autism, 2 substance dependence disorder, 5 substance abuse disorder, 13 posttraumatic stress disorder, 41 mental retardation, 95 cognitive disorder NOS, 5 Tourette's disorder, 2 motor tic disorder, 27 major depressive disorder, 25 dysthymia, 10 mood disorder nos, 16 anxiety disorder, 61 adjustment disorder, 19 mathematics disorder, 35 reading disorder, 23 writing disorder, 57 learning disorder NOS, 10 expressive language disorder, 2 stuttering, 14 A D H D NOS, 21 A D H D inattentive, 8 A D H D hyperactive, 55 A D H D combined, 16 seizure disorder, 49 acquired brain injury] none of the 36 subscales of the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery-Third Edition (LNNB-III) correlated significantly (p < .006, Bonferonni corrected with family alpha = .20) with gender, handedness, or ethnic background. Correlations between LNNB-III scores and gender, handedness, or ethnic background ranged from small to moderate after Bonferonni correction, but never reached significance criterion. Consequently, because of its low ceiling, the LNNB-III should be considered a fair test regarding handedness, gender, and ethnicity.
Chan, R. C. K., Lee, T. M. C., & Hoosain, R. Application of the Test of Everyday Attention in Hong Kong Chinese: A Factor Structure Study. Attention and concentration problems are commonly reported complaints following head injury. It has been demonstrated that attention problems may predict outcome in patients with various kinds of neurological diseases (Blane-Garin, 1994; Robertson, Ridgeway, Greenfield, & Parr, 1997). However, data obtained from laboratory tasks may not detect the true picture of attention problems among normal people and represent the attention deficits following closed head injuries. Therefore, we need to develop a test that can bridge such gaps. More recently, an ecologically valid test for attention, namely Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), was developed (Robertson, Ward, Ridgeway, & Nimmo-Smith, 1994, 1996). It is one of the few identified tests of attention for everyday life based on a strong theoretical background both for normal people and neurological impaired patients. The TEA leans heavily on Posner and Petersen's neuro-anatomi-
Abstracts from the 19th Annual Meeting
ment of stratified data for age, education, and language dominance. This test is proposed as a useful measure of learning with the Hispanic population in the United States. Its normative data makes it highly accessible to clinical and research settings.
Rosselli, M., Ardila, A., Marquez, M., Matos, L., Salvatierra, J .L., Weekes, V. A., & Ostrosky, F. Linguistic Organization in Verbal Fluency Tests Among English and Spanish Speakers and Spanish-English Bilinguals. The influence of language characteristics on verbal fluency test performance has received limited attention in the neuropsychology literature. The aim of this study was to examine the linguistic organization on phonemic verbal fluency tests in English and Spanish monolinguals and Spanish-English bilinguals. Eighty-two, right-handed participants (28 males and 54 females) with a mean age of 61.76 (SD = 9.30; range, 50-84) and a mean educational level of 14.8 years (SD = 3.6; range, 2-23) were selected. Forty-five of the subjects were English monolinguals, 18 were Spanish monolinguals, and 19 were Spanish-English bilinguals. Verbal fluency was tested by asking subjects to generate words within phonemic categories F, A, and S. The bilinguals' test scores were compared to English monolinguals' and Spanish monolinguals' test scores. Results demonstrated no differences in test scores between bilingual and monolingual subjects. However, a significant difference was observed in the type of words that were selected by each linguistic group. While Spanish speakers used meaningful words (e.g., nouns, verbs, and adjectives), English speakers frequently included grammatical words (e.g., prepositions). As expected, bilinguals were somewhere in between, when performing either in Spanish or in English. Results point to some differences in the lexical organization of English and Spanish. Seemingly, bilinguals have rather idiosyncratic types of lexical organization, as a result of using two different lexical systems.
Corona-LoMonaco, M. E., Pont6n, M. O., Herrera, L. P., Gonzalez, J., & Herrera, S. The Impact of Language and Culture on a Neuropsychological Screening Battery for Hispanics. Due to the lack of appropriate tests and norms for use with the Hispanic population in the United States, misdiagnosis of cognitive functioning is very common in research and clinical settings. The current paper presents both normative data and an assessment model to be used with Hispanic populations. One hundred Hispanic subjects were tested with the Neuropsychological Screening Battery for Hispanics (NeSBHIS), the Woodcock-Munoz Language Proficiency Battery and standardized measures of acculturation, cultural identity, and acculturative stress. It was hypothesized that in addition to education, high acculturation, cultural identity, and language proficiency will impact neuropsychological scores positively. The current results provide a unique contribution to the assessment of Hispanic patients by providing preliminary normative data that controls for acculturative stress and language proficiency. The data and the model are discussed as useful clinical tools for the neuropsychological assessment of the Hispanic population and the categorization of language dominance groups.
O'Bryant, S. E., Hiisabeck, R., & Gouvier, W. D. Cultural and Ethnic Influences on Recognition Memory Test Performance. The influence of culture and ethnicity on neuropsychological test performance has received little attention from researchers. The purpose of the present study was to investigate the influence of these variables on Recognition Memory Test (RMT) performance. Specifically, it was hypothesized that persons of non-Anglo descent would perform as
Abstracts from the 19th Annual Meeting
715
well as persons of Anglo descent on RMT Words, but not on RMT Faces. Participants were 30 Caucasian and 30 African American undergraduates at a large southern university. No participant reported current or past psychological or neurological problems. All participants were administered the RMT using the standard procedure. There were no significant differences between the groups on RMT Words or RMT Faces, suggesting minimal, if any, influence of culture or ethnicity on RMT performance in this sample. In fact, African-American participants obtained a slightly higher average score on RMT Faces than Caucasian participants (i.e., 37.97 vs. 38.43). Inexplicably, the average scores obtained by these undergraduates on RMT Faces fell below the 10th percentile for persons their age (a score of 37 is at the 5th percentile). This finding suggests reexamination of current norms for RMT Faces.
Dornheim, L., Espe-Pfeifer, P., Mahrou, M. L., Devaraju-Backhaus, S., & Golden, C. Gender, Ethnicity, and Handedness Regarding LNNB-III Performance in Children. When validating a neuropsychological instrument, performance differences between gender, ethnic origin, as well as handedness have to be considered paramount, since it is well-known that there are substantial differences on some tests due to these variables. In a mixed sample of 365 children with neurological and psychiatric disorders [age range, 3-18 years; mean age = 9.61, SD = 3.23; 271 males, 94 females; 184 Caucasians, 123 African Americans, 36 Latino-Hispanics, 20 other, 2 undocumented; 317 right-handed, 41 left-handed, 7 mixed; DSM-IV-diagnosis (with double diagnosis): 34 conduct disorder, 41 oppositional defiant disorder, 2 intermittent explosive disorder, 11 encopresis, 21 enuresis, 6 autism, 2 substance dependence disorder, 5 substance abuse disorder, 13 posttraumatic stress disorder, 41 mental retardation, 95 cognitive disorder NOS, 5 Tourette's disorder, 2 motor tic disorder, 27 major depressive disorder, 25 dysthymia, 10 mood disorder nos, 16 anxiety disorder, 61 adjustment disorder, 19 mathematics disorder, 35 reading disorder, 23 writing disorder, 57 learning disorder NOS, 10 expressive language disorder, 2 stuttering, 14 A D H D NOS, 21 A D H D inattentive, 8 A D H D hyperactive, 55 A D H D combined, 16 seizure disorder, 49 acquired brain injury] none of the 36 subscales of the Luria-Nebraska Neuropsychological Battery-Third Edition (LNNB-III) correlated significantly (p < .006, Bonferonni corrected with family alpha = .20) with gender, handedness, or ethnic background. Correlations between LNNB-III scores and gender, handedness, or ethnic background ranged from small to moderate after Bonferonni correction, but never reached significance criterion. Consequently, because of its low ceiling, the LNNB-III should be considered a fair test regarding handedness, gender, and ethnicity.
Chan, R. C. K., Lee, T. M. C., & Hoosain, R. Application of the Test of Everyday Attention in Hong Kong Chinese: A Factor Structure Study. Attention and concentration problems are commonly reported complaints following head injury. It has been demonstrated that attention problems may predict outcome in patients with various kinds of neurological diseases (Blane-Garin, 1994; Robertson, Ridgeway, Greenfield, & Parr, 1997). However, data obtained from laboratory tasks may not detect the true picture of attention problems among normal people and represent the attention deficits following closed head injuries. Therefore, we need to develop a test that can bridge such gaps. More recently, an ecologically valid test for attention, namely Test of Everyday Attention (TEA), was developed (Robertson, Ward, Ridgeway, & Nimmo-Smith, 1994, 1996). It is one of the few identified tests of attention for everyday life based on a strong theoretical background both for normal people and neurological impaired patients. The TEA leans heavily on Posner and Petersen's neuro-anatomi-