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Objective: Research demonstrates that college educated, English language dominant bilinguals underperform relative to English speaking monolinguals on tests of verbal ability. We investigated whether accepting responses in their two languages would reveal improved performance in bilinguals, and whether such improvement would be of sufficient magnitude to demonstrate the same performance level as monolinguals. Method: Participants were college students attending the same university. Spanish-English bilinguals were compared to English speaking monolinguals on the Bilingual Verbal Ability Tests (BVAT), which include Picture Vocabulary, Oral Vocabulary, and Verbal Analogies. Results: When given the opportunity to respond in Spanish to items failed in English, bilinguals obtained significantly higher scores on all three subtests, and their performance matched that of monolinguals on Oral Vocabulary and Verbal Analogies. Conclusion: An “either-language” scoring approach may enable optimal measurement of verbal abilities in bilinguals. We provide normative data for use in applying the either-language scoring approach on subtests of the BVAT. We discuss the findings in the context of clinical assessment. 

Multigram quantity of a novel Sulfa Drug complex -poly(amido)amine-sulfonamide or PAMAM-Sulfa- was synthesized, from commercially available materials. It was characterized with spectroscopic methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The Kirby-Bauer test was used to test it against gram positive and/or gram negative bacteria using different concentrations of an ethanol solution of the PAMAM-Sulfa complex. The goal of this experiment was to synthesize and study the effect of water soluble encapsulated sulfonamides on common bacteria by undergraduate students engaging in research involving more than one STEM discipline. Students synthesized a dendrimer-sulfonamide complex before evaluating its antibiotic properties. In doing so, students employed research methods that are common to chemistry, biology and nanoscience while also learning about mechanism of infectious diseases, drugs and drug resistance. This project allowed students to combine aspects of scientific research that are usually done separately, and an opportunity to observe the seamlessness of multidisciplinary science.