| A large percentage of ethnically diverse populations who live within the United States speak English as a second language. As of 2013, more than one in five people speak a language other than English at home (Zeigler & Camarota, 2014). The purpose of this study was to determine whether these individuals are at an increased risk of being falsely identified as failing to perform to ability on neurocognitive performance validity tests (PVTs) as these measures have been developed and validated on samples of individuals who are native English speakers. Group comparisons were computed on archival neuropsychological test data containing various dedicated and embedded PVTs in ESL (n = 58) and non-ESL (n = 227) patients. Results revealed significant differences only on FSIQ and Digit Span scores (ACSS, RDS), with the non-ESL patients scoring significantly higher. The difference in Full Scale Intelligence Quotient (FSIQ) appeared to be driven by not unexpected differences in Verbal Intelligence Quotient (VIQ); groups differed in VIQ but not Performance Intelligence Quotient (PIQ). Ultimately, current data indicate that ESL status does not impact performance on PVTs, with the exception of PVT indicators derived from Digit Span scores. |
