False positives on neuropsychological measures of effort among bilingual neurologically intact Mexican Americans

Author

Arnoldo Amador Jr., The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley

Date of Award

12-2016

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Dr. Philip Gasquoine

Second Advisor

Dr. Amy A. Weimer

Third Advisor

Dr. Ralph Carlson

Abstract

The present study examines the performance of bilingual Mexican Americans on neuropsychological measures of effort in language and visual-perceptual formats. Optimal/suboptimal effort cutoff scores derived from monolingual English Speakers were used to test participants divided by language of administration and bilingual groupings based upon Spanish-English difference scores on the Woodcock Munoz Language Survey-Revised Picture Vocabulary subtest. Participants produced more false positives (misidentification of suboptimal effort) on the Reliable Digit Span, a language formatted measure, and similar rates of false positives on visual-perceptual effort measures: Test of Memory Malingering and the Dot Counting Test as compared to established rates using monolingual English speakers. Results show that the Test of Memory Malingering and Dot Counting Test are appropriate for this linguistically diverse population while the Reliable Digit Span is not. These results show why linguistically diverse groups can be misdiagnosed as giving poor effort when the tests being used are not appropriate.

Comments

Copyright 2016 Arnoldo Amador Jr. All Rights Reserved.

https://www.proquest.com/dissertations-theses/false-positives-on-neuropsychological-measures/docview/1878085702/se-2?accountid=7119

Recommended Citation

Amador, Arnoldo Jr., "False positives on neuropsychological measures of effort among bilingual neurologically intact Mexican Americans" (2016). Theses and Dissertations. 106.
https://scholarworks.utrgv.edu/etd/106