Murray State University
Bilingual Language Distance Predicts Dementia Rating
Institution
Murray State University
Faculty Advisor/ Mentor
Maria Vazquez Brown
Abstract
This study explored the differences in the languages spoken by bilingual people may lead to differences in cognitive reserve and the progression of AD. Individuals who speak distant languages (e.g., a Romance and a Germanic language) will have a different linguistic experience than individuals who speak two near languages (e.g., two Romance languages). Knowledge of distant languages may provide speakers with a large set of cognitive tools (e.g., linguistic constructs, concepts, schemas) that could increase cognitive reserve. We hypothesized that greater language distance would predict lower dementia scores in a clinical AD population.A subset of the data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center was used in the analyses. This dataset consists of clinical and demographic information from AD patients collected at various Alzheimer’s Disease Centers. The data used in the current analyses were from bilinguals speakers of two Indo-European languages who were 85 years or older at the time of testing. Differences in reported primary language and test language were used as a proxy for bilingualism.A two stage hierarchical regression analysis was conducted with Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) as the dependent variable. Three demographic predictors (age, sex, primary language) were entered in the first step of the hierarchical multiple regression. This model was not statistically significant (F(3, 164) = 1.604; p = .190) and explained 3% of the variance in CDR. However, after entering language distance in step 2, the total variance explained by the model was 10% (R2 Change = .07; F(3, 164) = 12.401, p<.001). Two out of the four predictors in the final model were statistically significant: language distance (β = .27, p< .001) and age (β = .17, p< .05).Language distance was a better predictor of dementia scores in this clinical population than age, gender or primary language.
Bilingual Language Distance Predicts Dementia Rating
This study explored the differences in the languages spoken by bilingual people may lead to differences in cognitive reserve and the progression of AD. Individuals who speak distant languages (e.g., a Romance and a Germanic language) will have a different linguistic experience than individuals who speak two near languages (e.g., two Romance languages). Knowledge of distant languages may provide speakers with a large set of cognitive tools (e.g., linguistic constructs, concepts, schemas) that could increase cognitive reserve. We hypothesized that greater language distance would predict lower dementia scores in a clinical AD population.A subset of the data from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center was used in the analyses. This dataset consists of clinical and demographic information from AD patients collected at various Alzheimer’s Disease Centers. The data used in the current analyses were from bilinguals speakers of two Indo-European languages who were 85 years or older at the time of testing. Differences in reported primary language and test language were used as a proxy for bilingualism.A two stage hierarchical regression analysis was conducted with Clinical Dementia Rating (CDR) as the dependent variable. Three demographic predictors (age, sex, primary language) were entered in the first step of the hierarchical multiple regression. This model was not statistically significant (F(3, 164) = 1.604; p = .190) and explained 3% of the variance in CDR. However, after entering language distance in step 2, the total variance explained by the model was 10% (R2 Change = .07; F(3, 164) = 12.401, p<.001). Two out of the four predictors in the final model were statistically significant: language distance (β = .27, p< .001) and age (β = .17, p< .05).Language distance was a better predictor of dementia scores in this clinical population than age, gender or primary language.