The purpose of this study was to discover the print awareness knowledge of 25 four- and five-year-old Spanish-English bilingual children and to see if differences among the children are related to home environmental factors. The specific questions to be answered were: (1) How does the use of language varieties in the home affect print awareness? (2) How does the language of written materials in the home (whether in Spanish or English) affect print awareness? (3) In what language do children respond to print awareness tasks? (4) How does the literacy environment in the home affect print awareness? (5) How does the language of the literacy environment (whether English or Spanish) affect print awareness? (6) How does the parental attitude toward reading affect print awareness? This naturalistic study presents data collected and analyzed with the following instruments: Signs of the Environment, Level I and Level II; Pre-Schooler's Book Handling Knowledge; and a Parent Interview which was conducted in the home. The data indicate that the children whose parents said that both languages were spoken in the home had the highest percentage of appropriate responses on all three tasks. Three main factors appear to influence the language in which the child responded to the tasks. These are contextual setting, experience with the item, and television. This study was not organized in such a way as to discover whether amount of literacy in the home and its degree of use makes a difference to children's print awareness. However, it is evident from the responses given by the children that the literacy environment of the home and its surroundings does influence print awareness. This study provides ample evidence that some bilingual economically poor children have a strong support base in literacy development which schools can expand upon: (1) Bilingual children are print aware and have knowledge of books. (2) Bilingual parents care and are anxious for the children to learn. (3) Bilingual parents read to their children and provide them with opportunities to read and write in the home. (4) Bilingual homes have a variety of opportunities for literacy.

The present study was conducted to address the need to compare the validity of intelligence tests in predicting learning and achievement for Mexican Americans and Anglo children. In addition, the study examined the effects of variations in the language of test administration on Mexican American children with different linguistic competences (predominantly Spanish, bilingual, predominantly English). A widely used individual intelligence test, the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Revised (WISC-R), the Spanish English Screening Instrument, a subtraction skills pretest, five subtraction learning trials and five subtraction posttests were administered to a random sample of 150 Mexican American children and 50 Anglo children. The WISC-R and subtraction pretests and posttests were used as the predictor and criterion, respectively. The Cleary definition of bias in test use provided the basis for all analyses. Regression analysis were also performed in order to examine the effects of achievement and immediate prior learning on learning scores. In addition the Tukey Honestly Significant Difference test (HSD) was used following a one way analysis of variance to determine differences in IQ among the Anglo and Mexican American children tested under varying language conditions (English, Spanish, Bilingual). The results indicated that IQ test scores are not suitable predictors of learning for the Mexican American group and suggested that IQ scores can be used as predictors of learning for Anglo children. It was also found that IQ scores have utility in predicting achievement for both, Mexican American and Anglo children. In addition, analysis of variance data obtained from this study revealed significant differences in IQ associated with language of test administration. It was found that Mexican Americans tested in both Spanish and English obtained significantly higher scores than Mexican American children tested in English or Spanish alone. Findings from this study suggested that regardless of linguistic competence Mexican American children appear to benefit from bilingual approach to test administration. In short findings from this study revealed that the predictive validity of the WISC-R for Mexican American children is seriously impaired when a learning criterion is used. Implications of these findings were discussed and suggestions were made for the development of an assessment model based on learning as the criterion.

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No description available.

The migration morbidity hypothesis suggests that stress events inherent in immigration contribute to an increase in psychopathology. Assessing and investigating migration-morbidity among children of Mexican origin and Mexican American mothers living in the United States is the focus of the current study. Participants in the study were 133 students in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades residing in the U.S. A replication of the ASEBA Teacher Report Form (TRF) Post-Traumatic Stress Problems (PTSP) scale factor structure was conducted to determine its utility for children of Mexican and Mexican American mothers. Item-level confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to evaluate the adequacy of the PTSP scale model. Three models were evaluated using a CFI, RMSEA, and WRMR to determine fit. Results using dichotomous TRF responses and omitting item 8, which includes information about a child's ability to concentrate, yielded a CFI = 0.956, RMSEA = 0.071, and WRMR = 0.862. Standardized factor loadings ranged from 0.484 to 0.976. The ASEBA TRF was used to gather information about a teacher's perception of problem behaviors in the classroom. Information was gathered for two groups: children of Mexican and children of Mexican American mothers residing in south Texas. An ANOVA determined that teachers observed a statistically significant difference (p = .04, d = 0.37) in happiness between groups with children born of Mexican origin mothers and rated as less happy than their peers born to Mexican American mothers. Children did not differ in other measures of behavior. The students resided in a primarily Mexican American/Mexican community, which could have impacted the results. In addition, the sensitive nature of the study may have impacted the low return rate. Implications of the study and their impact on education and immigrant mental health are discussed.

The purpose of this study was to investigate the reliability and validity of the results of the Naglieri Nonverbal Ability Test (NNAT; Naglieri, 1997a) with a sample of English Language Learner (ELL) Mexican American children and to compare the performance on the NNAT of 122 ELL Mexican American children with children from the standardization sample. The rationale for conducting this study was the need to identify culturally sensitive and technically adequate nonverbal measures of ability for the fastest growing minority group within America’s public schools today, Mexican American children. The NNAT was administered to participants with parental consent. Statistical analyses of the scores did yield positive evidence of internal consistency for the Nonverbal Ability Index (NAI) total score of the NNAT. However, when individual clusters were analyzed, Pattern Completion, Reasoning by Analogy, and Serial Reasoning did not yield positive evidence of internal consistency. Only Spatial Visualization approached the reliability standard deemed acceptable for tests of cognitive ability. The mean differences of the NNAT scores between two independent groups were also assessed in the present study. Results of the statistical analyses did not yield statistically significant differences across age and grade factors between the scores of the ELL Mexican American sample and the standardization sample. Finally, the proposed factor structure of the NNAT was compared with the factor structure found with the ELL Mexican American sample. Goodness-of-fit test statistics indicate that the proposed four-factor structure does not fit well with the data obtained from this sample of ELL Mexican American students. Furthermore, although the NNAT is considered to be a unidimensional test of general ability, nine factors were extracted upon analysis, providing evidence that the items on each of the four clusters do not function together as four distinct dimensions with this ELL Mexican American sample. Given that the individual clusters that collectively combine to yield the NAI total score are not based on any particular model of intelligence, interpretation of specific strengths and weaknesses should be discouraged. Finally, the NNAT’s overall score should be interpreted with caution and may best be used in conjunction with multidimensional ability and/or intelligence measures.

No description available.

No description available.

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