Specificity rates for non-clinical, bilingual, Mexican Americans with California Verbal Learning Test3, verbal fluency, and Rey 15-IR performance validity measures

Abstract

Objective: To measure failure rates among non-clinical, Mexican American, bilinguals on embedded performance validity measures from the California Verbal Learning Test3 and verbal fluency and the stand-alone Rey 15-item test plus recognition (Rey 15-IR) using valid/invalid performance cut scores developed for monolingual, English-speakers.

Method: Participants were 60 consecutive recruits, aged between 18 and 75 years, with ≤16 years of education who self-identified as bilingual (confirmed via formal assessment) and chose the language of assessment, Spanish or English, for the performance validity tests.

Results: The only performance validity measure studied with a higher failure rate (19%) than that for monolingual, English-speakers (9%) was semantic fluency administered in Spanish.

Conclusions: Valid/invalid performance cut scores derived for monolingual English-speakers generated comparable or lower failure rates among Mexican American bilinguals on CVLT3 forced-choice recognition, CVLT3 yes–no recognition hits, letter fluency, semantic fluency in English, and the Rey 15-IR.

Keywords:

• Hispanic Americans
• effort in neuropsychological testing
• symptom validity tests
• Spanish–English bilingualism
• false positive rates

Acknowledgments

Many thanks to the following University of Texas Rio Grande Valley undergraduate and graduate psychology students who assisted with data collection and other aspects of this study: Arnoldo Amador; Renata Garcia Prieto Palacios Roji; Estefani Véliz; Luis Pérez; Mauricio Yáñez; and Joahana Segundo.

Disclosure statement

The authors declare no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.