One hundred and twenty kindergarten and second grade children from three different language environments were given a perceptual matching test and a verbal communication test to examine the relationship between language and cognitive performance. The object of the study was to focus on the cognitive processing demands imposed by the linguistic rule governing prenominal adjective ordering. The three language groups included 40 Mexican-Spanish speaking children from Monterrey, Mexico, 40 Chicano-Spanish speaking children, and 40 English speaking children from Houston, Texas. As expected, the English speaking group had significantly lower performance on the communication task than the two Spanish-speaking groups because of the processing demands imposed by English adjective ordering rules. The English-speakers also performed significantly lower on the perceptual task. Implications for education were discussed. (Author/AMH)