Maternal Generation from Mexico as a Predictor of Infants’ Language Development

Abstract

The hypothesis that maternal generation from Mexico predicts infant receptive and expressive communication age at 22 months was investigated. Participants included 62 infants from Mexican American families who graduated from a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) and 35 full-term infants also born to Mexican American parents. The results showed that infants born to mothers of recent generation from Mexico had lower language development scores than did infants born to mothers of later generation. Fathers'education levels were also significant predictors of infants'22-month language outcome, although maternal generation from Mexico remained a stronger predictor of outcome than did paternal education level for expressive language and for receptive language for the NICU graduates. The results support theories that emphasize the importance of environmental context on child development.