| The neuropsychological assessment of ethnic minority individuals has received limited attention, particularly in terms of learning and memory functions. The purpose of this investigation was to examine whether degree of bilingualism in Hispanic adults is associated with different learning strategies and recall patterns than those exhibited by Caucasian monolingual adults. These differences were examined using carefully constructed verbal learning lists equated for word typicality in English and Spanish.; Subjects consisted of two groups of Hispanic bilingual Spanish-English speaking adults (nonbalanced and balanced in language proficiency) and one group of Caucasian monolingual English speakers. The groups were similar in terms of age, education, and gender. Subjects were presented with categorized and non-categorized verbal learning lists in each language. For each list, five learning trials were administered, followed by an interference task and a delayed recall trial. Indices of performance included a semantic clustering ratio, total recall, and percent retention.; Results indicated that the nonbalanced bilinguals clustered words significantly less than the balanced bilinguals on the English categorized list, but essentially clustered words to the same extent as the monolinguals. However, the nonbalanced group recalled significantly fewer words on this list compared to the other groups. On the English non-categorized list, nonbalanced bilingual subjects recalled significantly fewer words than either balanced bilinguals or monolinguals. When the performance of nonbalanced bilingual subjects tested in Spanish was compared to the performance of balanced bilinguals tested in either language and to monolinguals tested in English, there were no differences on any of the indices of performance.; In this study, differences in recall, semantic clustering, and retention were not evident between similarly educated Hispanic and Caucasian subjects when these individuals were assessed using verbal learning lists constructed in their fluent language(s). It is concluded that the assessment of individuals in English who possess basic English skills but lack fluency may be an inappropriate means of verbal memory assessment. These findings suggest that verbal learning tests in Spanish, modeled after those in popular clinical use, can be effective tools to begin meeting the challenge of neuropsychological assessment of the Hispanic bilingual individual. |
