CULTURE-RELEVANT FUNCTIONAL PERFORMANCE ASSESSMENT OF THE HISPANIC ELDERLY

Because the Hispanic population is growing, there is a need for a reliable and valid functional assessment that is not culturally biased for white North Americans and that incorporates culture-relevant tasks for this large minority group. The Assessment for Motor and Process Skills (AMPS) (Fisher, 1993) is a unique evaluation tool that appears to meet that need. The AMPS consists of two scales (motor and process) that are assumed to be universal taxonomies that are free from cultural bias. This study was designed to investigate whether four Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks could be added to the AMPS as task choices and whether the AMPS could be used as a sensitive cross-cultural assessment for Hispanic elderly. Hispanic older adults performed two Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks and two culture-free tasks. Both goodness-of-fit among tasks and the performance of Hispanic subjects compared with North American subjects who had performed the same culture-free tasks were evaluated. The results indicated that (a) the Hispanic subjects' response patterns were consistent with response patterns of the North American subjects, and (b) the four Hispanic-culture-relevant tasks showed the same psychometric characteristics as previously established AMPS tasks. These findings support the potential to further develop the AMPS as a sensitive cross-cultural assessment for the Hispanic elderly.