Table 4.

Participant Characteristics for Older Adults Who Could Not Complete the Color-Shape Task and Matched Controls

Characteristics	Older bilinguals who could not do color-shape task (n = 5)		Matched controls (n = 10)a
	M	SD	M	SD
Age	80.8	6.4	78.2	6.7
% Female	80.0	N/A	70.0	N/A
Education	10.6	1.9	12.4	3.6
Age first exposure to English	6.5	4.7	12.2	7.1
Age first exposure to Spanish	0	0	0	0
% Currently using Spanish	53.0	19.9	52.0	32.5
% Use of Spanish in childhood	76.0	25.1	83.4	20.7
How often speak to bilinguals currentlyb	3	1.4	2.6	1.0
How often speak to bilinguals in childhoodb	3.5	0.7	2.3	1.5
DRS	134.5	2.6	136.5	4.0
MMSE	27.6	2.6	28.6	1.7
MINT English percent correct	81.5	8.5	86.5	7.4
MINT Spanish percent correct	80.6	6.0	87.5	7.7
Self-ratingsc
English speak	5.4	1.1	5.2	1.2
English listen	5.2	0.4	5.3	1.7
English write	4.2	1.9	4.9	2.0
English read	5.8	0.8	5.7	1.2
Spanish speak	6.1	1.0	6.5	0.8
Spanish listen	5.6	2.1	6.4	1.1
Spanish write	5.6	2.1	6.2	0.9
Spanish read	6.2	0.8	6.5	1.0

Note. DRS = Dementia Rating Scale; MMSE = Mini Mental State Examination; MINT = Multilingual Naming Test.

^aNo significant differences were found between the older adults who could not complete the color-shape task and their matched controls on any of the variables listed (all ps ≥ .10). They differed marginally on Spanish naming scores (p = .10), in which matched controls did slightly better on the Spanish portion of the MINT. They also differed marginally on age of first exposure to English (p = .13), in which the matched controls learned Spanish slightly later in life.

^bThe following 7-point scale was used: 1 = rarely or never, 2 = less than 1 hr/day, 3 = about 1 hr/day, 4 = about 2 hr/day, 5 = about 3–4 hr/day, 6 = about 5 hr/day, and 7 = 6 or more hr/day.

^cSelf-ratings were based on a 7-point scale: 1 = almost none, 2 = very poor, 3 = fair, 4 = functional, 5 = good, 6 = very good, and 7 = like native speaker.