Effects of language and acculturation on neurocognitive performance of Japanese Americans.

OBJECTIVE: Despite significant work in African and Hispanic American populations, little information is available regarding performance of Japanese Americans on neuropsychological tests. The aim of this study was to examine the effects of dominant language and acculturation levels on the performance of Japanese Americans on selected neurocognitive tests. METHOD: Based on their self-identified dominant language, 48 English-dominant speaking (ES) Japanese Americans (Mage = 64.48, SD = 10.52) and 52 Japanese-dominant speaking (JS) Japanese Americans (Mage = 60.17, SD = 11.15) were assessed on a neurocognitive battery. RESULTS: Significant differences in test performance were observed between the groups, with the JS group performing poorer on the measures of naming ability, verbal and olfactory learning/memory, and language, compared to the ES group. Levels of acculturation explained that group difference. The Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R) showed no group differences, suggesting lack of language proficiency and acculturation biases in this ethnic sample. Within the JS group, self-reported English proficiency and years of education obtained in Japan explained variance in addition to age, education, and gender, in performance on the Boston Naming Test and the Letter Fluency Test, respectively. CONCLUSIONS: The present study highlights the need for culturally sensitive evaluation in the neuropsychological assessment of this population. The variability in backgrounds contributed to the variability in performance between and within groups. Factors in addition to age and education, including the effects of primary language and acculturation, warrant consideration when evaluating the neuropsychological performance of Japanese Americans in research and clinical settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).

Performance of older Japanese American adults on selected cognitive instruments.

This study examined cognitive test performance of second- and third-generation Japanese American (JA) adults, a relatively homogeneous Asian American subgroup. Sixty-five JA and 65 non-Hispanic White (NHW) adults, ages between 45 and 91, were administered the Boston Naming Test-2 (BNT), Letter Fluency Test, Semantic Fluency Test, California Verbal Learning Test (CVLT), Brief Visuospatial Memory Test-Revised (BVMT-R), and Trail Making Test. Levels of acculturation, quality of educational attainment, and generation status in the United States, were also collected. There were no significant differences in the scores between the two groups on the tests administered. JA and NHW groups, however, differed in the patterns of the associations between some of the test performance and demographic variables. JA adults showed a stronger age-score relationship on BNT, CVLT, and the BVMT-R. Furthermore, second-generation JA adults performed lower than the third-generation adults even after controlling for basic demographic variables on CVLT and Trail Making Test. Acculturation on the other hand did not explain score differences once demographic variables were considered. Our results suggest the importance of considering unique history and characteristics of ethnic groups, and interactions of the aging process and culture on tasks with different cognitive demands.