Sociocultural influences in neuropsychological testing with Latinos of Mexican origin

Abstract

This study utilized a multi-method design, employing both nomothetic and ideographic approaches, to examine the influences of sociocultural variables on neuropsychological test performances of 80 healthy, bilingual, community-dwelling, male and female adults, ages of 20 - 74, recruited from Denver and Northern Colorado. In the quantitative portion, participants were randomly assigned to complete a brief battery of neuropsychological tests (representing attention, visuoconstruction, cognitive flexibility, verbal fluency, and verbal memory) in either their English- or Spanish-language format. In the qualitative portion, a subset of six participants conducted narrative interviews regarding their phenomenological experiences of completing the study measures with the examiner. Results of hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated that after controlling for sociodemographic factors, such as age, education, and gender, significant portions of criterion variance for many outcome indices were explained by the language of test administration and/or orthogonal acculturation status. Some models accounted for up to 60 percent of the criterion variance. Where orthogonal acculturation status was a significant predictor, more optimal test performances were (in nearly all cases) predicted by greater degrees of Anglo cultural orientation, in the absence of significant prediction by Mexican cultural orientation. Many significant themes of phenomenological experience emerged in qualitative analyses. Directions of future research and implications for the ethics and practice of cross-cultural neuropsychology with this population are discussed.