Relationship of Balanced Bilingualism and English Facility to the Intelligence Test Performance of Mexican-American Children

One line or research in bilingualism has produced results suggesting that the learning and use or two languages, per se, has a detrimental effect on the verbal intelligence test performance of bilingual children. The present study was designed to evaluate that possibility, while at the same time controlling for the independent effect of level of English language skill. Mexican-American children in the Goodland and Garden City, Kansas school systems were administered an Oral Language Dominance Measure to determine four groups of subjects. One group was high in both English and Spanish language facility, another had low facility in both languages, while the remaining two groups were each high in one and low in the other language. All subjects were administered a short form or the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children, providing verbal, Performance, and Full Scale IQ scores as dependent variables. Lowered Verbal IQ scores were attributed to the bilinguals\u27 poor English skills; the prediction that balanced knowledge of two languages is itself detrimental was not supported