Quality of Early Mother-Child Communication and Language Outcome in Low-Income Hispanic Children

项目摘要 学业轨迹很早就确立了，没有必要准备的孩子进入学校 技能是学业失败的最大风险。虽然幼儿的语言能力是 许多低收入家庭儿童的语言能力明显落后，这是入学准备最有力的预测因素。 哈特和瑞斯利(1995)被称为3000万字的鸿沟，它证明了生活在贫困中的儿童听到 与富裕的同龄人相比，他们的话要少得多，这些发现刺激了国家的倡议 旨在增加低收入儿童的语言输入量，建立积极的早期 学习轨迹。然而，令人振奋的新研究表明，这些善意的干预可能不会 如果他们不提高通信基础支持的质量，就会产生预期的影响 早期照顾者与儿童互动中的语言学习。西班牙裔儿童讲西班牙语和低语种 收入家庭面临着语言迟缓和过早学业失败的巨大风险，但几乎没有 关于如何最好地支持他们的语言发展和学业成功的研究。我们的新发现 关于最初几年通信基础的质量的重要性，强调如何 亲子互动的非言语和言语品质支持语言技能和铺路的发展 开发最佳干预措施的方法。说西班牙语的儿童是这类人的重要目标 干预措施。然而，迈向这一目标的一个重要的初步步骤是复制这一引人注目的研究 对讲西班牙语的非西班牙裔非裔美国人和欧洲裔美国儿童进行了调查 孩子们。达拉斯的一项现有研究包括了大量墨西哥裔西班牙人- 在谈到家庭时，我们处于独特的地位，可以满足以下三个目标： 目的1.完善交通基础质量评估的测量方法 因此，它们包含了西班牙人之间不同的亲子互动模式- 说的是墨西哥裔美国家庭。 目的2.检验早期沟通基础的质量与 说西班牙语的墨西哥裔美国儿童随后的儿童语言发展。 目的3.检验早期沟通基础的质量与 说西班牙语的墨西哥年轻人在幼儿园和一年级的学习成绩-- 美国儿童是否受到早期语言发展的调节。 方法将包括对现有评级协议进行全面审查和系统修改，以 捕捉低收入讲西班牙语母亲的早期沟通基础的这些方面 和他们的孩子。这一修订后的评级系统将适用于现有的低收入人群的纵向队列数据。 收入从达拉斯学龄前准备研究(DPReP)中挑选出来的墨西哥裔美国儿童。多变量 回归方法将被用来检验在年龄评估的沟通基础之间的关系 两岁半，在三岁半和幼儿园阶段完成语言和入学准备。

Project Abstract Academic trajectories are established early, and children who enter school without the requisite readiness skills are at greatest risk for academic failure. Although language ability in early childhood is one of the strongest predictors of school readiness, many low-income children are markedly delayed in language ability. Dubbed the 30-million word gap, Hart and Risley (1995) demonstrated that children living in poverty hear substantially fewer words than their more affluent peers, and these findings have spurred national initiatives designed to increase the quantity of language input to young low-income children to establish positive early learning trajectories. However, exciting new research suggests these well-intentioned interventions may not have their desired impact if they do not also increase the quality of the communication foundation supporting language learning during early caregiver-child interactions. Hispanic children in Spanish-speaking and low income households are at significant risk for language delays and early academic failure, but there is little research regarding how to best support their language development and academic success. Our new findings regarding the importance of the quality of the communication foundation in the earliest years highlight how nonverbal and verbal qualities of parent-child interactions support the development of language skill and pave the way for developing optimal interventions. Spanish-speaking children are an important target for such interventions. An important preliminary step towards this goal, however, is to replicate this compelling research conducted with non-Hispanic African American and European American children with Spanish-speaking children. Building upon an existing study in Dallas that includes a large number of Mexican-origin Spanish- speaking families, we are uniquely positioned to address the following three aims: Aim 1. To refine the measurement methods for assessing the quality of the communication foundation so that they encompass culturally distinct patterns of parent-child interaction among Spanish- speaking Mexican-American families. Aim 2. To examine the relation between the quality of the early communication foundation and subsequent child language development among young Spanish-speaking Mexican-American children. Aim 3. To examine the relation between the quality of the early communication foundation and academic achievement in kindergarten and first grade among young Spanish-speaking Mexican- American children and whether it is mediated by early language development. Methods will include a comprehensive review and systematic modification of the existing rating protocol to capture those aspects of the early communication foundation among low-income Spanish-speaking mothers and their children. This revised rating system will be applied to existing data for a longitudinal cohort of low- income Mexican-American children selected from the Dallas Preschool Readiness Study (DPReP). Multivariate regression methods will be used to examine relations between the communication foundation assessed at age 2½ with language and school readiness outcomes at ages 3½ and kindergarten.