Browsing by Author "Cortes, Patricia"

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    A brief tablet-based intervention benefits linguistic and communicative abilities in toddlers and preschoolers
    (2024) Pena, Marcela; Vasquez-Venegas, Constanza; Cortes, Patricia; Pittaluga, Enrica; Herrera, Mitzy; Pino, Esteban J.; Escobar, Raul G.; Dehaene-Lambertz, Ghislaine; Guevara, Pamela
    Young children's linguistic and communicative abilities are foundational for their academic achievement and overall well-being. We present the positive outcomes of a brief tablet-based intervention aimed at teaching toddlers and preschoolers new word-object and letter-sound associations. We conducted two experiments, one involving toddlers ( similar to 24 months old, n = 101) and the other with preschoolers ( similar to 42 months old, n = 152). Using a pre-post equivalent group design, we measured the children's improvements in language and communication skills resulting from the intervention. Our results showed that the intervention benefited toddlers' verbal communication and preschoolers' speech comprehension. Additionally, it encouraged vocalizations in preschoolers and enhanced long-term memory for the associations taught in the study for all participants. In summary, our study demonstrates that the use of a ludic tablet-based intervention for teaching new vocabulary and pre-reading skills can improve young children's linguistic and communicative abilities, which are essential for future development.
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    Low-Skilled Immigration and the Labor Supply of Highly Skilled Women
    (AMER ECONOMIC ASSOC, 2011) Cortes, Patricia; Tessada, Jose
    Low-skilled immigrants represent a significant fraction of employment in services that are close substitutes of household production. This paper studies whether the increased supply of low-skilled immigrants has led high-skilled women, who have the highest opportunity cost of time, to change their time-use decisions. Exploiting cross-city variation in immigrant concentration, we find that low-skilled immigration increases average hours of market work and the probability of working long hours of women at the top quartile of the wage distribution. Consistently, we find that women in this group decrease the time they spend in household work and increase expenditures on housekeeping services. (JEL J16, J22, J24, J61)