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The Nova Multilingual Neuropsychological Battery: A Pilot Study

  • Michelle Elena Stack

Student thesis: Doctoral ThesisDoctor of Philosophy

Abstract

The current study was conducted to obtain preliminary data on the Nova Multilingual Neuropsychological Battery (NMNB) from a sample of 95 undergraduate and graduate university students (46 monolingual English and 49 bilingual English-Spanish speakers). The measure consisted of 39 subtests and an effort measure in English and Spanish, developed to account for language and cultural factors hypothesized to influence neuropsychological test results. The subtests included measures of mental status, reading comprehension, short-term and long-term verbal and visual spatial memory, short-term and long-term verbal and visual spatial recognition memory, motor coordination, processing speed, serial learning, anomia, and executive functioning. An acculturation measure was also administered. It was hypothesized that there would be a significant difference in performance between the Bilingual Spanish group compared to the Monolingual English and Bilingual English groups, with anticipated better performance in the Monolingual English and Bilingual English groups compared to the Bilingual Spanish group. It was also hypothesized that there would be a significant positive correlation between level of acculturation and test performance. Results of ANCOVAs, controlling for the effects of age and education, compared the performance of 20 bilingual participants on the Spanish version of the test between the 46 English monolinguals and 29 bilingual participants administered the English version of the test. Results of the ANCOVA's did not generally support the hypothesis at the p
Date of AwardJan 1 2010
Original languageEnglish
SupervisorCharles Golden (Supervisor), Edward R. Simco (Advisor) & Sarah A Valley-Gray (Advisor)

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