This longitudinal study documents the key role of early joint engagement in the language and early literacy development of Mexican American children from low-income households. This rapidly growing population often faces challenges as sequential Spanish-English language learners. Videos of 121 mothers and their 2.5-year-old children interacting in Spanish for 15 min were recorded in 2009–2011 in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area. Researchers reliably rated general dyadic features of joint engagement—symbol-infused joint engagement, shared routines and rituals, and fluency and connectedness—that have been found to facilitate language development in young English-speaking children. The construct respeto, a valued aspect of traditional Latino parenting, was also rated using 2 culturally specific items—the parent's calm authority and the child's affiliative obedience. In addition, 3 individual contributions—maternal sensitivity, quality of maternal language input, and quality of child language production—were assessed. General features of joint engagement at 2.5 years predicted expressive and receptive language at 3.6 years and receptive language and early literacy at 7.3 years, accounting for unique variance over and above individual contributions at 2.5 years, with some effects being stronger in girls than boys. The level of culturally specific joint engagement did not alter predictions made by general features of joint engagement. These findings highlight the importance of the quality of early communication for language and literacy success of Mexican American children from low-income households and demonstrate that culturally specific aspects of early interactions can align well with general features of joint engagement.

这项纵向研究记录了早期共同参与对来自低收入家庭的墨西哥裔美国儿童的语言和早期识字能力发展的关键作用。作为连续的西班牙语-英语学习者，这个快速增长的人口经常面临挑战。2009 年至 2011 年在达拉斯-沃斯堡大都市区录制了 121 名母亲和她们 2.5 岁的孩子用西班牙语互动 15 分钟的视频。研究人员可靠地评估了联合参与的一般二元特征——注入符号的联合参与、共享的例程和仪式、流畅性和连通性——这些特征被发现有助于英语幼儿的语言发展。尊重这一传统拉丁裔养育方式的一个重要方面，也使用两个特定文化项目进行评估——父母的冷静权威和孩子的亲和服从。此外，还评估了 3 个个人贡献——母亲敏感性、母语输入质量和儿童语言产生质量。2.5岁时共同参与的一般特征预测了3.6岁时的表达性和接受性语言，以及7.3岁时的接受性语言和早期识字能力，解释了2.5岁时个人贡献之上的独特差异，其中一些影响对女孩比男孩更强。文化上特定的联合参与水平并没有改变联合参与的一般特征所做出的预测。这些发现强调了早期沟通质量对于低收入家庭的墨西哥裔美国儿童语言和读写能力成功的重要性，并表明早期互动的文化特定方面可以与共同参与的一般特征很好地结合起来。