Table 1.
Linguistic and cognitive background characteristics for higher-proficiency and lower-proficiency bilinguals, including number of correct words produced on Spanish verbal fluency tasks
| Higher-proficiency bilinguals Mean (SE) | Lower-proficiency Bilinguals Mean (SE) | |
|---|---|---|
| Age of Spanish acquisitionns | 2.1 (0.7) | 2.9 (0.8) |
| Current exposure to Spanish ns (%) | 25.9 (3.7) | 18.4 (3.6) |
| Digit spanns | 17.5 (0.6) | 17.8 (0.7) |
| WASI, matrix reasoningns | 109.3 (2.6) | 110.6 (2.9) |
| English receptive vocabularyns | 117.7 (3.3) | 114.9 (2.9) |
| Self-reported Spanish proficiency* (1–10 scale) | 8.1 (0.3) | 7.3 (0.3) |
| Spanish letter fluency** | 12.3 (0.5) | 7.1 (0.3) |
| Letter E | 11.3 (0.8) | 5.6 (0.8) |
| Letter P | 12.3 (0.4) | 7.7 (0.8) |
| Letter M | 12.4 (0.8) | 6.7 (0.4) |
| Letter A | 12.5 (2.7) | 6.8 (0.7) |
| Letter L | 12.0 (1.7) | 6.8 (0.4) |
| Letter C | 15.0 (0.7) | 8.9 (0.9) |
| Spanish category fluency** | 10.1 (0.9) | 7.0 (0.6) |
| ANIMAL category (Animales) | 15.4 (2.3) | 8.2 (1.1) |
| FRUITS category (Frutas) | 10.0 (1.9) | 5.9 (1.1) |
| CLOTHES category (Vestidos) | 10.2 (2.2) | 6.2 (1.1) |
| COLORS category (Colores) | 12.0 (0.8) | 11.0 (1.0) |
| VEGETABLES category (Verduras) | 6.3 (1.0) | 3.6 (0.9) |
| Overall Spanish verbal fluency** | 11.4 (0.6) | 7.0 (0.6) |
**
Between-group differences at p < .01;
*
between-group difference at p < .05; ns = not significant