Tips for Assessing Bilingual Children as a Monolingual SLP

How to go about assessing bilingual children as a monolingual SLP regarding all languages.

Conduct a family/caregiver interview:
- Minimize bias
- Gain insight to expectations and the possibility for deficits
Use an interpreter
- Meet prior to review process, terminology, and expectations
- Obtain key information such as: “It was very hard for me to understand him,” or, “He doesn’t use prepositions correctly.” This along withadditional testing measures can help support or negate a true disorder.
Use highly pragmatic tests
- if formal/standardized testing is not available in the child’s primary language.
- These tests will help determine the client’s grasp of conversational language, which is the first building block to more complex language.
- You cannot report standard scores when using standardized testing notnormed for that language. You can use the information as qualitative data to support the rest of your findings.
Employ dynamic assessment
- a pretest of a skill, an intervention to address that skill, and then a post-test to determine if there was progress.
Include a communication sample in any communication evaluation:
- Determine how language is used through the use of a conversation or story.

Be mindful:

The silent period occurs when a client is first exposed to a new language.
- Can be misdiagnosed with another disorder or language delay
- Lasts up to 6 months to a year
Bilingual development is recognized in two stages.
- Basic Interpersonal Communication Skills (BICS), also known as “conversational language,” typically takes two to three years to acquire.
- Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP), also known as “academic language,” takes five to seven years to develop.
- common misidentifications during these phrases are Language Disorder and Specific Learning Disability.

Rosemary D.