Carla Rivera, Los Angeles Times, October 20, 2009
Poor immigrant Latinas have healthy babies, but by age 2 or 3, their toddlers begin to lag behind white middle-class children in vocabulary, listening and problem-solving skills, according to two studies released Tuesday.
Researchers call it the “immigrant paradox”: Pregnant Latino women smoke and drink less than pregnant white and African American women, Latino newborns have lower infant mortality rates, and the cognitive skill of infants 9 to 15 months are about equal for white and Latino children.
But by the time they are toddlers, Latino children trail their white counterparts by up to six months in understanding words, speaking in more complex sentences and performing such simple tasks as assembling puzzles.
The findings from researchers at UC Berkeley, UCLA and the University of Pittsburgh are based on a nationwide tracking study of more than 8,000 children born in 2001 and are being published in the Maternal and Child Health Journal and the medical journal Pediatrics.
Past studies have documented disparities between Latino children and their white peers in kindergarten and persistent achievement gaps in later grades. The new findings pinpoint the beginnings of those gaps at an earlier age than previously thought. {snip}
“Cognitive skills and language during toddler years are a strong predictor of who will do well in kindergarten and early elementary grades,” said study co-author Bruce Fuller, a professor of education and public policy at UC Berkeley. “These early lags in learning need to be addressed in a sensitive and respectful fashion, but they need to be addressed early on.”
Fuller and his colleagues attribute part of the paradox to larger Latino families, which could result in individual children receiving less attention from their parents. A bigger issue, researchers say, is that poor Latino mothers tend to be less educated than women in other groups. Studies have found that undereducated parents read fewer books and share fewer stories with their children, which is fundamental for later literacy skills.
{snip}
[Editor’s Note: “The Health and Cognitive Growth of Latino Toddlers: At Risk or Immigrant Paradox?” by Bruce Fuller et al., can be read here.
Original article
Email
Carla Rivera
at carla.rivera@latimes.com .
(Posted on October 26, 2009)
Comments
It’s the same deal with Head Start programs and blacks. HS is given to black children during the times in their lives when they are actually ahead of whites in brain development, all as a measure of central tendency. But around the age of 10 or 11, blacks tend to level off, and white mental development continues after those ages.
Someone once explained this kind of thing to me by saying that a six-month old dog, *relative to the life cycle of a dog*, is more mature than a six-month hold human, *relative to the life cycle of a human*. Expand it to race, and human racial differences, and the concept is easy to grok.
This is what the authors said: “These early lags in learning need to be addressed in a sensitive and respectful fashion, but they need to be addressed early on.”
Now, imagine if the authors had studied skin color, growth or lactose intolerance (all of which, like IQ) have strong strong genetic components: “These early lags in skin color, growth and lactose intolerance need to be addressed in a sensitive and respectful fashion, but they need to be addressed early on.”
It would be as ridiculous to try to rectify racial differences in skin color as it would be to attempt to “fix” lactose intolerance, ultimate body height (Africans are taller than Hispanics), or IQ. MesoAmerican Indians have low IQ, and it is caused by genes. You can’t fix genes! Spending Billions of Dollars trying to make all races have the same IQ is like trying to make all races have the same skin color, height, and tolerance to lactose.
“Past studies have documented disparities between Latino children and their white peers in kindergarten and persistent achievement gaps in later grades.”
Isn’t it odd they are making comparisons only between whites and Hispanics?
Why don’t they make a study, then report on it, revealing that Hispanics do much better than blacks throughout their entire lives?
The Hispanic group I.Q. average, per the Bell Curve, is 89. The black group average is only 85. (In Africa it is 70.)
Why isn’t that ever reported? And why are blacks concentrated on so much since they only comprise 12% of the population, while mestizos amount to about 15% and are ignored, unless they want to compare them with whites, but never to any other hyphenated American?
Blacks are not only behind whites, Hispanics, Asians and Middle Easterners, they’re behind the whole world. Every race in America does better than blacks. Why isn’t that ever reported? Why always compare them with whites?
How much more money will the taxpayers be forced to pay and waste to take on another huge racial group in trying to erase the so-called racial learning curve? Billions and decades have been previously spent on the blacks to no avail. These people always ignore the fact that Asian immigrants cannot read or write English to their children but yet their children achievement level is comparable to whites. These people should be forced to spend their own money in the social experiment of heredity (genes) vs. environment. Watch them all disappear!
“Studies have found that undereducated parents read fewer books and share fewer stories with their children, which is fundamental for later literacy skills.”
They could look at some transracial adoption data showing that people tend to do about as well as their biological peers not their adoptive parents.
If Caucasian parents spend much more time with their pre-school children than Latino parents do, then how exactly is that whitey’s fault? If Latino parents consider the schools to be the primary educators of their children, how is that whitey’s fault?
Despite all the talk about providing tutors and counseling one on one, schools- elementary, high school and college - are akin to a swimming pool. Every student is thrown into the pool, and it’s literally “sink or swim”. Either you know the material or you don’t.
Of course, a genetic explanation is staring the writer in the face, but Ms. Rivera cannot see it. Let’s just rig the tests so that the “immigrant paradox” simply disappears.
“Fuller and his colleagues attribute part of the paradox to larger Latino families …”
As May 14, 2009, America’s under-age-five population was already 25 percent Latino:
“The U.S. Census Bureau today released national population estimates showing that our nation is becoming older and more racially and ethnically diverse. The estimates found that nearly half (47 percent) of the nation’s children younger than five were a minority in 2008, with 25 percent being Hispanic.”*
*See “Census Bureau Estimates Nearly Half of Children Under Age 5 are Minorities,” May 14, 2009:http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/population/013733.html
In percentage terms, Americans of lower cognitive ability are in the ascendancy and they will be for the foreseeable.
There is no obvious means to reverse this trend, though some measures (an immigration moratorium, for example) could slow it.
“Fuller and his colleagues attribute part of the paradox to larger Latino families, which could result in individual children receiving less attention from their parents.”
These folks will bend reality like a contortionist. Anything to avoid admitting the obvious…….As far as the above excuse, where they surmise that large families might keep the kids from learning as quickly as thoise in a smaller family? I have found the opposite to be true in my unscientific observations. The toddlers in larger familes seem to be advanced over those in smaller families.
Those are the children of our future folks. These PC researchers are afraid to admit the awful truth. Those gaps will not be closed. They will stay with them the rest of their lives. The idea that a dumb child can be turned into a smart kid with a little extra nurturing has proven to be false. Where’s the evidence? Sure those formative years before 5 years old are especially important in a child’s development, but what’s the solution? Go into every Latino household and force them to read to their children and give them a stimulating environment in hopes that maybe, just maybe the gap will be lessened? Even draconian methods of forced infant education will not solve the problem. The truth is, and this has been shown in many studies, that proper stimulation is important to a child’s intellectual, physical and emotional development, but they have to be seriously deprived for a deficiency to occur. The gap is genetic.
Leave it to the LA(tino) Times and UC Berkeley etc to kick things off with lies bracketing facts. Latino women smoke and drink less than “pregnant” American white women? Huh? Not in Los Angeles they don’t. These women, constantly bloated from seemingly an endless succession of pregnancies to ensure social services are constantly engaging in drinking, smoking and more right out in the open. You can’t help but notice it. The fact is that these people don’t have the same cognitive skills or capacity in certain areas as whites. It’s genetic. Just more garbage to designed to create new programs to transfer white wealth to non-whites who shouldn’t be here in the first place.
Adult Hispanics in the United States have an average IQ of about 90. We can assume than some part of that deficiency relative to whites is genetic, and so it’s not surprising that it shows up in toddlers. (We’re importing Latin America’s peasant class; Mexican dentists don’t sneak into this country. So while the average IQ in Mexico may well be higher than 90, it’s the average IQ of the fraction we’re getting that counts.)
Only modern day liberal Lysenkoists, refusing to acknowledge the real cognitive differences among different human groups, could find anything “paradoxical” about this.
To ice at #3. The reason why blacks and hispanics are always referenced to whites in terms of the learning curve is that there is a whole industry built on that lie. These people knows that the racial achievement gap will never be bridged. They know how to play on white guilt to obtain billions of taxpayers’ dollars to keep themselves employed forever. To keep the job security and money coming ever stronger, the hispanics (a rapid growing group in this country) are now included with the blacks as being disadvantaged. They will keep playing on this game until the money runs dry which will eventually occur as whites are becoming the minority.
Well, who would have ‘thunk’ it? I have a graph for IQ of Hispanics in the USA, including data for many ages gathered over much of the 20th. century. The curve shows a mean IQ right around 90 over all the ages tested, for USA Hispanics.
Why should a toddler growing up in the company of older siblings be less stimulated than an only child whose parents are at the office all day? And why should a mother’s education matter to a three year old? Do mothers with Masters’ degrees speak to their diaper-clad offspring in iambic pentameter? These “researchers” are looking for excuses, plainly enough.
I agree with the results of the study but would like to see another study done of the white latinos. What americans dont understand is that there is another breed of latinos, the white ones but they are not the ones we see crossing the fence in the desert. We only get the poorest of the poor, the indian latinos. But I bet the white class of latinos would score basically the same as white americans. I live about 3 months a year in Medellin Colombia in the high class section of the city. The residents there look just like us but thier maids, and they all have maids, look like the mexicans we see every day here. My Colombian girlfreind is just as white as any white american girl I have dated, and may I add a lot sweeter also. The point I am trying to make is to defend the relatively small amount of the white latinos and not clump them all together. Unfortunately, we dont get the white ones here. Another point is that there is a fairly high percentage of african latinos also,, especially along the coastal areas, and in any latin city you visit, the very lowest class area is the blackest. Latinos are not encumbered by the politically correct doctrine we are and know very well and are quite vocal in their opinoins of the blacks. The blacks are not put on a pedestal and are allowed to progress or fail on thier own as it should be here. kingfish
I think we have to face up to the fact that a good portion, if not the majority, of differences in IQ are related to environment and culture. It’s even ‘intelligence quotient’. What you know, divided by your age. An older person must score much higher on the initial test in order to receive the same IQ score.
People score comparatively lower on the IQ test because of their lifelong attitude towards learning. Those who score lower are simply not as interested in the outside world. Or, put another way, they end up with a lower IQ because of their own lifelong love of ignorant, backward, and racist behavior. That is to say, those with a lower IQ have a greater propensity toward ignorant and racist behavior.
There’s no need to ‘reform’ these students, however. Nope. That would be condescending to them. I just want to get the hell away from them.
Hang onto your hats. Recent studies from Princeton and Harvard show that the children of recent Mexican immigrants have an average IQ more like 83 — that’s even lower than AA’s. Keep in mind that 80 is the threshold for being able to complete high school — with a very minimal skill set. In two decades America will go from being an information economy to an ignorance economy. In case what you are wondering what Obama is up to, he is busy doing the spade work redistributing White capital to create a Socialist paradise for these global underachievers. To pay for the sins of racism, Whites will be forced to keep the lights on and the water running in this new Mexican Indian reservation until they are no more.
The stock we have been getting from Mexico and Latin America the last 15 years is much more heavily Indian, as in full blood, than earlier, when a lot of Mestizos were still coming in. The average IQ among these people is less than 90. The Mestizos may average 90 but the Indios etc average about 84 according to Lynn, Jensen and other sources. These are the slaves the elites wish to serve them.
This is such an old topic.
And yet at around age 14 these Hispano-mestizos master the often incomprehensible ,mind-numbing hand signs(like playing pattycake in a insane asylum) that they proudly denote gang membership with total ease???
