The present study examined the influence of African American
acculturation on the performance of neuropsychological tests following
traumatic brain injury (TBI). Seventy one participants already enrolled
in a larger-scale study assessing the impact of TBI (i.e., the South
Eastern Michigan Traumatic Brain Injury Model Systems project)
completed a self-report measure of African American acculturation
(African American Acculturation Scale–Short Form; Landrine & Klonoff, 1995) in addition to a
standardized battery of neuropsychological tests. Hierarchical
regression analyses were conducted to evaluate the relationship between
level of acculturation and test performance after controlling for
injury-related (initial Glasgow Coma Scale score, time since injury)
and demographic variables (age, sex, years of education, and
socioeconomic status). Lower levels of acculturation were associated
with significantly poorer performances on the Galveston Orientation
& Amnesia Test, MAE Tokens test, WAIS–R Block Design, Rey
Auditory Verbal Learning Test, and Symbol Digit Modalities Test.
Decreased levels of acculturation were also significantly related to
lower scores on a composite indicator of overall neuropsychological
test performance. In addition, the examiner's ethnicity (Black or
White) was related with scores on a few of the tests (i.e., Block
Design, Trail Making Test), but was not significantly associated with
the overall neuropsychological test performance. Overall, these
findings suggest that differences in cultural experience may be an
important factor in the neuropsychological assessment of African
Americans following TBI, and provide additional support for the
hypothesis that cultural factors may partially account for the
differences among ethnic/cultural groups on neuropsychological
tests. (JINS, 2004, 10, 566–577.)