Research in clinical neuropsychology with Hispanic American participants: a review.
Research on the neuropsychological assessment of adult Hispanic Americans has used mostly elderly, poorly educated, Spanish-speaking participants, resident in the United States for more than 15 years. Studies have involved comparisons with Anglo-Americans, the effects of moderator variables (e.g., bilingualism) and test standardization and validation. Most neuropsychological studies comparing Hispanic and Anglo-Americans have methodological weaknesses, such as overly liberal Type I error rates and inappropriate statistical controls for educational differences. What intergroup discrepancies do exist are likely due to educational (quantitative and qualitative) differences, non-equivalent Spanish/English translations and/or acculturation/ bilingualism related factors. Research suggests that Spanish-language neuropsychological test battery norms should be stratified by age, education (including lower grade levels), and to a limited extent gender, but there is little data to support separation by ethnicity. Acculturation/bilingualism variables can suggest when English-language tests are more appropriate to use with Hispanic Americans.
Gasquoine
P G
PG
South Texas Neuropsychology, Corpus Christi 78411, USA. drgdrg13@yahoo.com
D000069:Acculturation; D006630:Hispanic or Latino / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D019303:Multilingualism; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D011594:Psychometrics; D012015:Reference Standards; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D044465:White People / Q000523:psychology