To weigh the extent to which Mexican heritage or foreign-born status contributes to early growth, this study first compares levels
of cognitive and communicative skills
among children of Mexican American and native-born White mothers at 9
and 24 months of age, drawing from a national sample
of births in 2001.
Just one fifth of Mexican
American toddlers kept pace with the cognitive growth of White toddlers
at or
above their mean rate of growth through 24 months
of age, matched on their 9-month cognitive status.
The study then assesses how
factors
from developmental-risk or ecocultural theory help
to explain which Mexican American toddlers kept pace with White peers.
Growth was stronger among toddlers whose family did
not live beneath the poverty line, and whose mothers reported higher
school
attainment, more frequent learning activities, and
exhibited steadier praise during a videotaped interaction task, factors
more weakly observed among foreign-born Mexican
American mothers.
The researchers found little evidence that foreign-born mothers
exercised
stronger home practices that advanced toddlers’
early cognitive growth as posited by immigrant-advantage theory. The
positive
factors emphasized by developmental-risk theory
helped to explain variation in the cognitive growth of children of
native-born,
but not foreign-born, Mexican mothers.
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