Studies Find Latino Toddlers' Gap in Cognitive Growth
Two new studies led by University of California, Berkeley, researchers find that immigrant Latina mothers, who typically live in poor neighborhoods, give birth to healthy babies, but their toddlers start to lag behind middle-class white children in basic language and cognitive skills by the age of 2 or 3
BERKELEY (October 20, 2009) - The UC Berkeley-led researchers report that Latina mothers from the poorest group studied - those of Mexican heritage, who speak Spanish rather than English at home, and who are least acculturated - give birth to healthy babies whose weight equals that of the average newborn of middle-class, non-Latino white mothers. These women also are no more likely than white mothers to give birth prematurely, which can jeopardize the early brain growth of infants.
The Mexican American mothers "display remarkably sound prenatal practices and healthy diets, more beneficial habits than any other group in the U.S.," said Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley, who led both studies. He noted that pregnant Latina women also smoked and drank alcohol far less than their African American and white counterparts.
But while robust births contribute to the earliest cognitive growth of Latino toddlers, Fuller said these youngsters are falling behind the pace of white children's language and mental development by the time they turn 2 or 3.
Basic cognition proficiencies for infants at 9 to 15 months of age - such as comprehending their mother's speech and beginning to use their own words and gestures -were found to be statistically equal between Latino and white children, said Fuller. But by 24- to 36-months of age, Mexican-American toddlers lag their white counterparts by up to a half-year in terms of word comprehension, speaking with varying complexity and working with their mothers on simple learning tasks as assessed in English or Spanish, the researchers found.
The study team, based at UC Berkeley's Institute of Human Development, UCLA's School of Medicine and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, points to low levels of maternal education, larger family size, and uneven learning practices in the home to explain their findings. Just one-fifth of Mexican American and one-third of all Latina mothers had completed any college courses, compared with almost two-thirds of white mothers. Almost three-fifths of Mexican American toddlers were growing up in families earning less than $25,000 per year, relative to just one-fifth of white families.
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