Language and Cognition

To examine the relationship between language and cognitive performance, 120 kindergarten and second grade children from three different language environments were given a perceptual matching test and a verbal communication test. The three language groups included 40 Mexican Spanish-speaking children from Monterrey, Mexico, and from Houston, Texas, 40 Chicano Spanish-speaking children and 40 English-speaking children. The English-speaking group had significantly lower performance on the communication task than the two Spanish-speaking groups. The processing demands imposed by English adjective ordering rules accounted for this difference in performance. The English speakers also performed significantly lower on the perceptual task, perhaps for the same reason. Implications for education were discussed.