Effect of language status on neuropsychological test performance in elderly nursing home residents

Little research exists examining the effect of being a non-native English speaker on English language neuropsychological measures. The present study administered 83 non-demented individuals over age 80 (48 native English speakers and 35 non-native fluent English speakers) the Boston Naming Test (BNT), a multiple-choice version of the BNT, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test - Third Edition (PPVT-III), and phonemic and semantic fluency tasks. The non-language based Trails-Making Test (TMT) was administered as a control measure. Contrary to expectations, there were no significant differences between native and non-native English speakers on measures of phonemic fluency, semantic fluency, or confrontation naming measures. In contrast, there were no differences in performance by language status on the TMT, as hypothesized. Also as hypothesized, the PPVT-III correlated positively with the BNT (R = .58) and with verbal fluency measures, both within and across the two language groups. However, no significant correlation was found between the TMT and education. The effect of the age of second language acquisition and level of proficiency in that language are discussed.