For forty years, this textbook has been the gold-standard resource for providing speech-language pathologists with a strong foundation of knowledge on speech sound disorders. Previously published as Articulation and Phonological Disorders, this core text is now in its ninth edition, fully updated and expanded to meet the needs of today’s clinicians as they work with children of all ages. A cornerstone of every SLP’s professional preparation, the new edition of this book offers the most up-to-date, comprehensive coverage of contemporary clinical literature and the best available treatments for speech sound disorders. With a focus on evidence-based practice, the expert authors and contributors present essential information and guidelines on a broad range of topics, from the basics of typical speech production to recommended practices for assessment and intervention. Updates include new and expanded chapters on timely topics, new instructor materials and student-friendly features, and helpful guidance for clinicians serving an increasingly diverse population. With this authoritative synthesis of research and practice, the next generation of SLPs will have the broad and deep knowledge they need to understand speech sound disorders and provide children with the best possible supports and interventions. WHAT’S NEW: All chapters fully updated with the latest research and recommended practices New chapter on treatment of childhood apraxia and speech sound disorders in older children Expanded guidance on evidence-based practices and treatment basics More on motor-based approaches to treatment Extended discussion of language variation and dialect New chapter on accent modification New student-friendly features such as learning objectives and clinical vignettes to demonstrate treatment practices Updated Online Instructor’s Resource Manual and Test Bank SELECTED TOPICS COVERED: fundamentals of typical speech production and acquisition • specific factors associated with speech sound disorders, including motor abilities, cognitive-linguistic factors, and psychosocial factors • classification and comorbidity in speech sound disorders • assessment and data collection procedures • using assessment data to make sound decisions about intervention • using evidence-based practices in treatment • motor-based treatment approaches • linguistically based treatment approaches • treatment of childhood apraxia of speech • phonological awareness development and intervention • assessment and intervention considerations for children from culturally and linguistically diverse populations • accent modification for second language learners INSTRUCTOR MATERIALS INCLUDED: Faculty can easily incorporate this text into their course with the fully updated online Instructor's Resource Manual and Test Bank. Included are key points, discussion topics, and instructional ideas for each chapter, plus a bank of multiple choice, short answer, and essay questions. Need the book before November? The ebook of Speech Sound Disorders in Children will be available in August, just in time for your fall classes.

The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed in response to the need for valid, reliable instruments for assessment of speech and language ability, along a continuum, in English-Spanish bilingual children ages 4 through 6 years. The BESA is a comprehensive assessment of a child's speech and language abilities in English and Spanish. Two ancillary questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK) can be used to document language exposure and use, allowing the examiner to develop a profile of any parent and teacher concerns. BESA subtests address the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics separately for both Spanish and English. There are three standardized and norm-referenced subtests addressing language ability, and one criterion-referenced activity allowing observation of pragmatic language. Administration time varies depending on whether or not both languages are tested and which subtests are included. Administration takes between one hour (for one language) and two hours (for both languages). The BIOS is typically completed as part of an interview by the examiner. In this survey, parents are asked about the language exposure history of the child. This information helps the examiner know when and in what context each of the child's two languages were used on a year-to-year basis. In addition, parents and teachers are asked what language the child hears and uses during a typical school day, and during a typical weekend day on an hour-by-hour basis. This information provides clinicians with information about relative use and exposure to each language and can help guide whether to test children in Spanish, English, or both. The parent survey (BIOS-Home) takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete; the teacher survey (BIOS-School) can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. The ITALK is completed by the examiner as a parent and teacher interview. The ITALK items address relative use of a child's two languages and five areas of speech and language development in Spanish and English (vocabulary, grammar, sentence production, comprehension, and phonology). Parents and teachers are asked to identify the perceived level of the child's performance in each language. This inventory provides a brief indicator of relative language use. It also provides a description of parent and teacher concern and can be used to guide development of the assessment strategy. Results of the inventory can be used to interpret diagnostic results from BESA or other language tests. The ITALK can be completed in 10 minutes or less. The Pragmatics activity is based on Fey's (1986) model of assertiveness and responsiveness. In an interactive format, children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner. Through this realistic situation, obligatory contexts are set up to elicit different assertive and responsive acts. The Pragmatics activity utilizes English, Spanish, or both languages together (via code-switching) depending on the child's preferred language of interaction. The activity should be used to identify children who may encounter difficulties in situations that require the children to be active participants (e.g., classroom). If administered at the beginning of a battery of tests, the Pragmatics activity provides an excellent opportunity to establish rapport with the child and will also provide clinicians with an indication of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. This activity takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The Phonology subtest is a single-word phonological assessment designed primarily to differentially diagnose typical from atypical phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children. Analyses are also included that allow the examiner to profile the phonological skills in these children. The assessment includes two measures. The Spanish measure assesses phonological production using 28 Spanish words. The English measure assesses phonological production using 31 English words. The Phonology subtest takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer in each language, depending on the individual child (20 to 30 minutes total). The Morphosyntax subtest employs cloze and sentence repetition tasks to target grammatical morphemes and sentence structures that were predicted to be difficult for children with language impairment in English or Spanish. Forms tested in English include plural -s, possessive -s, past and present tense, third-person singular, progressives, copulas, auxiliary do negatives, and passives, as well as complex verb forms, conjunctions, and embedded prepositions and noun phrases. The English Morphosyntax Subtest has 24 cloze items and 9 sentence repetitions items. Forms tested in Spanish include articles, progressives, clitics, subjunctives, preterite, complex verb forms, and conjunctions. The Spanish Morphosyntax Subtest has 15 cloze items and 10 sentence repetitions items. For each language, a grammatical cloze subscore, a sentence repetition subscore, and a total score that is a composite of those two are derived. The morphosyntax test takes approximately 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The Semantics subtest targets six tasks: analogies, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences. These six item types were based on the literature describing acquisition of semantic breadth and depth in order to tap into how children organize and access their lexical system (Pena, Bedore, & Rappazzo, 2003). The English Semantics subtest has a total of 25 items: 10 receptive and 15 expressive. The Spanish Semantics subtest also has 25 items, 12 receptive and 13 expressive. Scoring allows for code-mixing-giving children credit for a correct response in either language. Subscores are provided for semantics receptive and semantics expressive, as well as a total semantics score for each language. The Semantics subtest takes about 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The BESA is designed to be used with children who speak English, Spanish, or both languages. The BESA subtests are psychometrically sound and yield scaled and standard scores for each of the domain tests (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics). The questionnaires provide criterion-based guidelines to determine language(s) of testing and to develop an assessment strategy. The tests can be used together for a complete speech and language battery or the examiner may select tests specific to the diagnostic question. Presently, the test is appropriate for children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11. The BESA can be used (a) to identify language impairment in bilingual and monolingual Latino children, (b) to document progress in speech and language related to intervention, (c) to document the dominant language in each domain including morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology, and (d) in research studies of bilingual children with and without language impairment. The BESA is specifically designed to assess the speech and language of English-Spanish bilingual children's two languages. The primary use of the BESA is to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and EL children via a standardized protocol. The objective scores obtained on the BESA across three domains can be used in combination with clinical observations, language samples, as well as with other standardized measures to identify children with speech and/or language impairment. Through use of a combination of BESA subtests, clinicians can document children's speech and language strengths and needs. A second use of the BESA is to monitor children's progress in speech and language. After initiation of a speech and language intervention program, children's progress should be regularly documented. It is recommended that daily probes be used to monitor children's session-to-session progress. This information should be used to make decisions about the direction of the intervention. The BESA is sensitive to year-to-year changes in children's speech and language growth and the particular language in which progress is being made. Thus, in addition to the more sensitive measures of daily progress, the BESA can be administered at broader intervals (e.g., annually or semi-annually) to gauge progress in a specific program of intervention, to document continued need for intervention, and to document achievement of treatment goals for exiting services. Documentation of a bilingual's dominant language is a challenge in school settings. Many children who have exposure to more than one language demonstrate mixed dominance, whereby they perform higher in one language in one domain, but higher in the other language in a different domain. It is therefore important to know what a child's relative dominance is across different domains of speech and language. This information can be useful for planning intervention, as well as for planning educational programming for bilingual children. Together, the BIOS-Home and BIOS-School provide an objective measure of children's input and output of Spanish and English. This information helps speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers, and administrators know how much the child hears and uses each language and in what contexts. This information is independent of performance, which can be affected by child characteristics such as language ability. In addition to the BIOS, the Spanish and English standardized test scores can be compared directly for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics to determine a child's best language for a particular domain. If children's standard scores across domains are within 5 points of each other, we consider them to be balanced. There are a number of ways that the BESA subtests can be used in research. ITALK can be used to gain parent and teacher observations about the child's performance across five domains of speech and language in Spanish and English as part of qualifying data for a study. BIOS can be used to document weekly input and output in Spanish and English as a way of grouping children by language experience and/or by year of first exposure. For bilingual children with language impairment, BIOS provides a measure that is independent of their test performance on speech and language tasks. The three domain subtests can be used together or independently to assess children's speech and language. These can be used to qualify children for a study or to group children by ability. As of this writing, the authors have conducted and published several studies with the longer, experimental versions of BESA subtests. In addition, researchers across the country have used the experimental versions of BESA in studies of bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Researchers in Spanish-speaking countries are in the process of using the Spanish version of these measures in research studies.

Dual language learners are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. student population, and the majority speak Spanish as a first language. This graduate-level textbook—now in its third edition—gives future speech-language pathologists the comprehensive knowledge they need to work effectively with Spanish–English bilingual children and support their language development. Aligned with current best practices and updated with the latest research and new chapters on critical topics, this book prepares SLPs for practice with cutting-edge information on language development and disorders of Spanish–English bilingual children. More than 25 leading researchers compile the high-level knowledge SLPs need to understand the complexity of language development in bilingual children, distinguish language differences from disorders accurately, and conduct effective assessment and intervention. An essential graduate text that will also be a trusted reference for practicing professionals, this third edition gives current and future SLPs a broad, deep, and nuanced understanding of communication development and disorders in Spanish English bilingual children. NEW CHAPTERS ON: the human right to communicate in more than one language • development of speech perception and production in bilingual preverbal infants • culturally and linguistically responsive approaches to language intervention. UPDATED INFORMATION ON: bilingual language development of English learners • bilingualism and the child socialization process • bilingual lexical development, assessment, and intervention • semantic development • grammatical impairments • morphosyntactic development • cross-linguistic influence and code-switching • oral narrative language skills and disorders • first language loss and attrition • literacy learning • the intersection of language and academics • speech sound development and disorders • fluency • professional development practices.

When a young bilingual child experiences language difficulties, it can be hard to tell if those challenges are due to a disorder or just limited exposure to the English language. That's a critical distinction-because while limited language exposure will fix itself over time, a language impairment is a clinical issue that will cause the child difficulties in school without timely and effective intervention. Now there's a valid reliable assessment that specifically responds to the needs of young Spanish-English bilingual children. For use with children ages 4 through 6 years who have varying degrees of bilingualism, the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed to: identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual children and English language learners using a standardized protocol differentiate between a delay in English language acquisition and a true language disorder document children's speech and language strengths and needs monitor children's progress in both languages and use the information to make decisions about intervention Through a combination of subtests for students and surveys for teachers and parents, BESA reveals the big picture of a young bilingual child's language development. Comprehensive assessment with BESA includes: 3 subtests (in both English and Spanish). These three standardized, norm-referenced subtests address the key domains of morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology. The subtests are administered with children one-on-one in a quiet, well-lit, well-ventilated room free of distractions. 2 questionnaires. The SLP gathers more information by interviewing both parents and teachers. Bilingual Input-Output Survey (BIOS): determines Spanish and English use at home and school and pinpoints which language(s) need testing Inventory to Assess Language Knowledge (ITALK): identifies the parent's and teacher's perception of the child's performance in each language and highlights areas of possible concern Pragmatic activity: This 5- to 10-minute warmup activity, in which children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner, is used to establish rapport with the child and give clinicians an idea of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. BESA Benefits: Valid and reliable. There are very few assessment tools for bilingual children, and even fewer that are valid and reliable. BESA answers the call for a bilingual assessment backed up with solid evidence of validity and reliability. Culturally and linguistically appropriate. BESA subtests are different for each language; the Spanish subtest isn't just a translation of the English one. Dialects were taken into consideration-the norming sample included 17 Spanish dialects and 7 regional dialects for English-and items were developed for each language based on the markers, structure, and culture of that language. Uncovers the full picture of a child's language development.Not only does BESA identify language impairments, it also helps you gauge progress in both languages and document a child's dominant language across different domains of speech and language. This critical information will help you plan interventions and educational programming for bilingual children. Flexible and convenient. You can use each BESA component independently or combine them as part of an assessment battery. Choose which component you want to give-you're not required to administer both the English and Spanish subtests. BESA can also be given over multiple sessions, so you can easily fit it into your schedule. What's in the kit? 1 BESA Test Manual 1 BESA Stimulus Book 20 BESA Protocol English Forms 20 BESA Protocol Spanish Forms 20 BIOS Forms 20 ITALK forms

The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed in response to the need for valid, reliable instruments for assessment of speech and language ability, along a continuum, in English-Spanish bilingual children ages 4 through 6 years. The BESA is a comprehensive assessment of a child's speech and language abilities in English and Spanish. Two ancillary questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK) can be used to document language exposure and use, allowing the examiner to develop a profile of any parent and teacher concerns. BESA subtests address the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics separately for both Spanish and English. There are three standardized and norm-referenced subtests addressing language ability, and one criterion-referenced activity allowing observation of pragmatic language. Administration time varies depending on whether or not both languages are tested and which subtests are included. Administration takes between one hour (for one language) and two hours (for both languages). The BIOS is typically completed as part of an interview by the examiner. In this survey, parents are asked about the language exposure history of the child. This information helps the examiner know when and in what context each of the child's two languages were used on a year-to-year basis. In addition, parents and teachers are asked what language the child hears and uses during a typical school day, and during a typical weekend day on an hour-by-hour basis. This information provides clinicians with information about relative use and exposure to each language and can help guide whether to test children in Spanish, English, or both. The parent survey (BIOS-Home) takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete; the teacher survey (BIOS-School) can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. The ITALK is completed by the examiner as a parent and teacher interview. The ITALK items address relative use of a child's two languages and five areas of speech and language development in Spanish and English (vocabulary, grammar, sentence production, comprehension, and phonology). Parents and teachers are asked to identify the perceived level of the child's performance in each language. This inventory provides a brief indicator of relative language use. It also provides a description of parent and teacher concern and can be used to guide development of the assessment strategy. Results of the inventory can be used to interpret diagnostic results from BESA or other language tests. The ITALK can be completed in 10 minutes or less. The Pragmatics activity is based on Fey's (1986) model of assertiveness and responsiveness. In an interactive format, children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner. Through this realistic situation, obligatory contexts are set up to elicit different assertive and responsive acts. The Pragmatics activity utilizes English, Spanish, or both languages together (via code-switching) depending on the child's preferred language of interaction. The activity should be used to identify children who may encounter difficulties in situations that require the children to be active participants (e.g., classroom). If administered at the beginning of a battery of tests, the Pragmatics activity provides an excellent opportunity to establish rapport with the child and will also provide clinicians with an indication of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. This activity takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The Phonology subtest is a single-word phonological assessment designed primarily to differentially diagnose typical from atypical phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children. Analyses are also included that allow the examiner to profile the phonological skills in these children. The assessment includes two measures. The Spanish measure assesses phonological production using 28 Spanish words. The English measure assesses phonological production using 31 English words. The Phonology subtest takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer in each language, depending on the individual child (20 to 30 minutes total). The Morphosyntax subtest employs cloze and sentence repetition tasks to target grammatical morphemes and sentence structures that were predicted to be difficult for children with language impairment in English or Spanish. Forms tested in English include plural -s, possessive -s, past and present tense, third-person singular, progressives, copulas, auxiliary do negatives, and passives, as well as complex verb forms, conjunctions, and embedded prepositions and noun phrases. The English Morphosyntax Subtest has 24 cloze items and 9 sentence repetitions items. Forms tested in Spanish include articles, progressives, clitics, subjunctives, preterite, complex verb forms, and conjunctions. The Spanish Morphosyntax Subtest has 15 cloze items and 10 sentence repetitions items. For each language, a grammatical cloze subscore, a sentence repetition subscore, and a total score that is a composite of those two are derived. The morphosyntax test takes approximately 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The Semantics subtest targets six tasks: analogies, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences. These six item types were based on the literature describing acquisition of semantic breadth and depth in order to tap into how children organize and access their lexical system (Pena, Bedore, & Rappazzo, 2003). The English Semantics subtest has a total of 25 items: 10 receptive and 15 expressive. The Spanish Semantics subtest also has 25 items, 12 receptive and 13 expressive. Scoring allows for code-mixing-giving children credit for a correct response in either language. Subscores are provided for semantics receptive and semantics expressive, as well as a total semantics score for each language. The Semantics subtest takes about 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The BESA is designed to be used with children who speak English, Spanish, or both languages. The BESA subtests are psychometrically sound and yield scaled and standard scores for each of the domain tests (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics). The questionnaires provide criterion-based guidelines to determine language(s) of testing and to develop an assessment strategy. The tests can be used together for a complete speech and language battery or the examiner may select tests specific to the diagnostic question. Presently, the test is appropriate for children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11. The BESA can be used (a) to identify language impairment in bilingual and monolingual Latino children, (b) to document progress in speech and language related to intervention, (c) to document the dominant language in each domain including morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology, and (d) in research studies of bilingual children with and without language impairment. The BESA is specifically designed to assess the speech and language of English-Spanish bilingual children's two languages. The primary use of the BESA is to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and EL children via a standardized protocol. The objective scores obtained on the BESA across three domains can be used in combination with clinical observations, language samples, as well as with other standardized measures to identify children with speech and/or language impairment. Through use of a combination of BESA subtests, clinicians can document children's speech and language strengths and needs. A second use of the BESA is to monitor children's progress in speech and language. After initiation of a speech and language intervention program, children's progress should be regularly documented. It is recommended that daily probes be used to monitor children's session-to-session progress. This information should be used to make decisions about the direction of the intervention. The BESA is sensitive to year-to-year changes in children's speech and language growth and the particular language in which progress is being made. Thus, in addition to the more sensitive measures of daily progress, the BESA can be administered at broader intervals (e.g., annually or semi-annually) to gauge progress in a specific program of intervention, to document continued need for intervention, and to document achievement of treatment goals for exiting services. Documentation of a bilingual's dominant language is a challenge in school settings. Many children who have exposure to more than one language demonstrate mixed dominance, whereby they perform higher in one language in one domain, but higher in the other language in a different domain. It is therefore important to know what a child's relative dominance is across different domains of speech and language. This information can be useful for planning intervention, as well as for planning educational programming for bilingual children. Together, the BIOS-Home and BIOS-School provide an objective measure of children's input and output of Spanish and English. This information helps speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers, and administrators know how much the child hears and uses each language and in what contexts. This information is independent of performance, which can be affected by child characteristics such as language ability. In addition to the BIOS, the Spanish and English standardized test scores can be compared directly for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics to determine a child's best language for a particular domain. If children's standard scores across domains are within 5 points of each other, we consider them to be balanced. There are a number of ways that the BESA subtests can be used in research. ITALK can be used to gain parent and teacher observations about the child's performance across five domains of speech and language in Spanish and English as part of qualifying data for a study. BIOS can be used to document weekly input and output in Spanish and English as a way of grouping children by language experience and/or by year of first exposure. For bilingual children with language impairment, BIOS provides a measure that is independent of their test performance on speech and language tasks. The three domain subtests can be used together or independently to assess children's speech and language. These can be used to qualify children for a study or to group children by ability. As of this writing, the authors have conducted and published several studies with the longer, experimental versions of BESA subtests. In addition, researchers across the country have used the experimental versions of BESA in studies of bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Researchers in Spanish-speaking countries are in the process of using the Spanish version of these measures in research studies.

The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed in response to the need for valid, reliable instruments for assessment of speech and language ability, along a continuum, in English-Spanish bilingual children ages 4 through 6 years. The BESA is a comprehensive assessment of a child's speech and language abilities in English and Spanish. Two ancillary questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK) can be used to document language exposure and use, allowing the examiner to develop a profile of any parent and teacher concerns. BESA subtests address the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics separately for both Spanish and English. There are three standardized and norm-referenced subtests addressing language ability, and one criterion-referenced activity allowing observation of pragmatic language. Administration time varies depending on whether or not both languages are tested and which subtests are included. Administration takes between one hour (for one language) and two hours (for both languages). The BIOS is typically completed as part of an interview by the examiner. In this survey, parents are asked about the language exposure history of the child. This information helps the examiner know when and in what context each of the child's two languages were used on a year-to-year basis. In addition, parents and teachers are asked what language the child hears and uses during a typical school day, and during a typical weekend day on an hour-by-hour basis. This information provides clinicians with information about relative use and exposure to each language and can help guide whether to test children in Spanish, English, or both. The parent survey (BIOS-Home) takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete; the teacher survey (BIOS-School) can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. The ITALK is completed by the examiner as a parent and teacher interview. The ITALK items address relative use of a child's two languages and five areas of speech and language development in Spanish and English (vocabulary, grammar, sentence production, comprehension, and phonology). Parents and teachers are asked to identify the perceived level of the child's performance in each language. This inventory provides a brief indicator of relative language use. It also provides a description of parent and teacher concern and can be used to guide development of the assessment strategy. Results of the inventory can be used to interpret diagnostic results from BESA or other language tests. The ITALK can be completed in 10 minutes or less. The Pragmatics activity is based on Fey's (1986) model of assertiveness and responsiveness. In an interactive format, children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner. Through this realistic situation, obligatory contexts are set up to elicit different assertive and responsive acts. The Pragmatics activity utilizes English, Spanish, or both languages together (via code-switching) depending on the child's preferred language of interaction. The activity should be used to identify children who may encounter difficulties in situations that require the children to be active participants (e.g., classroom). If administered at the beginning of a battery of tests, the Pragmatics activity provides an excellent opportunity to establish rapport with the child and will also provide clinicians with an indication of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. This activity takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The Phonology subtest is a single-word phonological assessment designed primarily to differentially diagnose typical from atypical phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children. Analyses are also included that allow the examiner to profile the phonological skills in these children. The assessment includes two measures. The Spanish measure assesses phonological production using 28 Spanish words. The English measure assesses phonological production using 31 English words. The Phonology subtest takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer in each language, depending on the individual child (20 to 30 minutes total). The Morphosyntax subtest employs cloze and sentence repetition tasks to target grammatical morphemes and sentence structures that were predicted to be difficult for children with language impairment in English or Spanish. Forms tested in English include plural -s, possessive -s, past and present tense, third-person singular, progressives, copulas, auxiliary do negatives, and passives, as well as complex verb forms, conjunctions, and embedded prepositions and noun phrases. The English Morphosyntax Subtest has 24 cloze items and 9 sentence repetitions items. Forms tested in Spanish include articles, progressives, clitics, subjunctives, preterite, complex verb forms, and conjunctions. The Spanish Morphosyntax Subtest has 15 cloze items and 10 sentence repetitions items. For each language, a grammatical cloze subscore, a sentence repetition subscore, and a total score that is a composite of those two are derived. The morphosyntax test takes approximately 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The Semantics subtest targets six tasks: analogies, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences. These six item types were based on the literature describing acquisition of semantic breadth and depth in order to tap into how children organize and access their lexical system (Pena, Bedore, & Rappazzo, 2003). The English Semantics subtest has a total of 25 items: 10 receptive and 15 expressive. The Spanish Semantics subtest also has 25 items, 12 receptive and 13 expressive. Scoring allows for code-mixing-giving children credit for a correct response in either language. Subscores are provided for semantics receptive and semantics expressive, as well as a total semantics score for each language. The Semantics subtest takes about 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The BESA is designed to be used with children who speak English, Spanish, or both languages. The BESA subtests are psychometrically sound and yield scaled and standard scores for each of the domain tests (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics). The questionnaires provide criterion-based guidelines to determine language(s) of testing and to develop an assessment strategy. The tests can be used together for a complete speech and language battery or the examiner may select tests specific to the diagnostic question. Presently, the test is appropriate for children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11. The BESA can be used (a) to identify language impairment in bilingual and monolingual Latino children, (b) to document progress in speech and language related to intervention, (c) to document the dominant language in each domain including morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology, and (d) in research studies of bilingual children with and without language impairment. The BESA is specifically designed to assess the speech and language of English-Spanish bilingual children's two languages. The primary use of the BESA is to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and EL children via a standardized protocol. The objective scores obtained on the BESA across three domains can be used in combination with clinical observations, language samples, as well as with other standardized measures to identify children with speech and/or language impairment. Through use of a combination of BESA subtests, clinicians can document children's speech and language strengths and needs. A second use of the BESA is to monitor children's progress in speech and language. After initiation of a speech and language intervention program, children's progress should be regularly documented. It is recommended that daily probes be used to monitor children's session-to-session progress. This information should be used to make decisions about the direction of the intervention. The BESA is sensitive to year-to-year changes in children's speech and language growth and the particular language in which progress is being made. Thus, in addition to the more sensitive measures of daily progress, the BESA can be administered at broader intervals (e.g., annually or semi-annually) to gauge progress in a specific program of intervention, to document continued need for intervention, and to document achievement of treatment goals for exiting services. Documentation of a bilingual's dominant language is a challenge in school settings. Many children who have exposure to more than one language demonstrate mixed dominance, whereby they perform higher in one language in one domain, but higher in the other language in a different domain. It is therefore important to know what a child's relative dominance is across different domains of speech and language. This information can be useful for planning intervention, as well as for planning educational programming for bilingual children. Together, the BIOS-Home and BIOS-School provide an objective measure of children's input and output of Spanish and English. This information helps speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers, and administrators know how much the child hears and uses each language and in what contexts. This information is independent of performance, which can be affected by child characteristics such as language ability. In addition to the BIOS, the Spanish and English standardized test scores can be compared directly for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics to determine a child's best language for a particular domain. If children's standard scores across domains are within 5 points of each other, we consider them to be balanced. There are a number of ways that the BESA subtests can be used in research. ITALK can be used to gain parent and teacher observations about the child's performance across five domains of speech and language in Spanish and English as part of qualifying data for a study. BIOS can be used to document weekly input and output in Spanish and English as a way of grouping children by language experience and/or by year of first exposure. For bilingual children with language impairment, BIOS provides a measure that is independent of their test performance on speech and language tasks. The three domain subtests can be used together or independently to assess children's speech and language. These can be used to qualify children for a study or to group children by ability. As of this writing, the authors have conducted and published several studies with the longer, experimental versions of BESA subtests. In addition, researchers across the country have used the experimental versions of BESA in studies of bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Researchers in Spanish-speaking countries are in the process of using the Spanish version of these measures in research studies.

The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed in response to the need for valid, reliable instruments for assessment of speech and language ability, along a continuum, in English-Spanish bilingual children ages 4 through 6 years. The BESA is a comprehensive assessment of a child's speech and language abilities in English and Spanish. Two ancillary questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK) can be used to document language exposure and use, allowing the examiner to develop a profile of any parent and teacher concerns. BESA subtests address the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics separately for both Spanish and English. There are three standardized and norm-referenced subtests addressing language ability, and one criterion-referenced activity allowing observation of pragmatic language. Administration time varies depending on whether or not both languages are tested and which subtests are included. Administration takes between one hour (for one language) and two hours (for both languages). The BIOS is typically completed as part of an interview by the examiner. In this survey, parents are asked about the language exposure history of the child. This information helps the examiner know when and in what context each of the child's two languages were used on a year-to-year basis. In addition, parents and teachers are asked what language the child hears and uses during a typical school day, and during a typical weekend day on an hour-by-hour basis. This information provides clinicians with information about relative use and exposure to each language and can help guide whether to test children in Spanish, English, or both. The parent survey (BIOS-Home) takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete; the teacher survey (BIOS-School) can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. The ITALK is completed by the examiner as a parent and teacher interview. The ITALK items address relative use of a child's two languages and five areas of speech and language development in Spanish and English (vocabulary, grammar, sentence production, comprehension, and phonology). Parents and teachers are asked to identify the perceived level of the child's performance in each language. This inventory provides a brief indicator of relative language use. It also provides a description of parent and teacher concern and can be used to guide development of the assessment strategy. Results of the inventory can be used to interpret diagnostic results from BESA or other language tests. The ITALK can be completed in 10 minutes or less. The Pragmatics activity is based on Fey's (1986) model of assertiveness and responsiveness. In an interactive format, children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner. Through this realistic situation, obligatory contexts are set up to elicit different assertive and responsive acts. The Pragmatics activity utilizes English, Spanish, or both languages together (via code-switching) depending on the child's preferred language of interaction. The activity should be used to identify children who may encounter difficulties in situations that require the children to be active participants (e.g., classroom). If administered at the beginning of a battery of tests, the Pragmatics activity provides an excellent opportunity to establish rapport with the child and will also provide clinicians with an indication of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. This activity takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The Phonology subtest is a single-word phonological assessment designed primarily to differentially diagnose typical from atypical phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children. Analyses are also included that allow the examiner to profile the phonological skills in these children. The assessment includes two measures. The Spanish measure assesses phonological production using 28 Spanish words. The English measure assesses phonological production using 31 English words. The Phonology subtest takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer in each language, depending on the individual child (20 to 30 minutes total). The Morphosyntax subtest employs cloze and sentence repetition tasks to target grammatical morphemes and sentence structures that were predicted to be difficult for children with language impairment in English or Spanish. Forms tested in English include plural -s, possessive -s, past and present tense, third-person singular, progressives, copulas, auxiliary do negatives, and passives, as well as complex verb forms, conjunctions, and embedded prepositions and noun phrases. The English Morphosyntax Subtest has 24 cloze items and 9 sentence repetitions items. Forms tested in Spanish include articles, progressives, clitics, subjunctives, preterite, complex verb forms, and conjunctions. The Spanish Morphosyntax Subtest has 15 cloze items and 10 sentence repetitions items. For each language, a grammatical cloze subscore, a sentence repetition subscore, and a total score that is a composite of those two are derived. The morphosyntax test takes approximately 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The Semantics subtest targets six tasks: analogies, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences. These six item types were based on the literature describing acquisition of semantic breadth and depth in order to tap into how children organize and access their lexical system (Pena, Bedore, & Rappazzo, 2003). The English Semantics subtest has a total of 25 items: 10 receptive and 15 expressive. The Spanish Semantics subtest also has 25 items, 12 receptive and 13 expressive. Scoring allows for code-mixing-giving children credit for a correct response in either language. Subscores are provided for semantics receptive and semantics expressive, as well as a total semantics score for each language. The Semantics subtest takes about 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The BESA is designed to be used with children who speak English, Spanish, or both languages. The BESA subtests are psychometrically sound and yield scaled and standard scores for each of the domain tests (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics). The questionnaires provide criterion-based guidelines to determine language(s) of testing and to develop an assessment strategy. The tests can be used together for a complete speech and language battery or the examiner may select tests specific to the diagnostic question. Presently, the test is appropriate for children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11. The BESA can be used (a) to identify language impairment in bilingual and monolingual Latino children, (b) to document progress in speech and language related to intervention, (c) to document the dominant language in each domain including morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology, and (d) in research studies of bilingual children with and without language impairment. The BESA is specifically designed to assess the speech and language of English-Spanish bilingual children's two languages. The primary use of the BESA is to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and EL children via a standardized protocol. The objective scores obtained on the BESA across three domains can be used in combination with clinical observations, language samples, as well as with other standardized measures to identify children with speech and/or language impairment. Through use of a combination of BESA subtests, clinicians can document children's speech and language strengths and needs. A second use of the BESA is to monitor children's progress in speech and language. After initiation of a speech and language intervention program, children's progress should be regularly documented. It is recommended that daily probes be used to monitor children's session-to-session progress. This information should be used to make decisions about the direction of the intervention. The BESA is sensitive to year-to-year changes in children's speech and language growth and the particular language in which progress is being made. Thus, in addition to the more sensitive measures of daily progress, the BESA can be administered at broader intervals (e.g., annually or semi-annually) to gauge progress in a specific program of intervention, to document continued need for intervention, and to document achievement of treatment goals for exiting services. Documentation of a bilingual's dominant language is a challenge in school settings. Many children who have exposure to more than one language demonstrate mixed dominance, whereby they perform higher in one language in one domain, but higher in the other language in a different domain. It is therefore important to know what a child's relative dominance is across different domains of speech and language. This information can be useful for planning intervention, as well as for planning educational programming for bilingual children. Together, the BIOS-Home and BIOS-School provide an objective measure of children's input and output of Spanish and English. This information helps speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers, and administrators know how much the child hears and uses each language and in what contexts. This information is independent of performance, which can be affected by child characteristics such as language ability. In addition to the BIOS, the Spanish and English standardized test scores can be compared directly for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics to determine a child's best language for a particular domain. If children's standard scores across domains are within 5 points of each other, we consider them to be balanced. There are a number of ways that the BESA subtests can be used in research. ITALK can be used to gain parent and teacher observations about the child's performance across five domains of speech and language in Spanish and English as part of qualifying data for a study. BIOS can be used to document weekly input and output in Spanish and English as a way of grouping children by language experience and/or by year of first exposure. For bilingual children with language impairment, BIOS provides a measure that is independent of their test performance on speech and language tasks. The three domain subtests can be used together or independently to assess children's speech and language. These can be used to qualify children for a study or to group children by ability. As of this writing, the authors have conducted and published several studies with the longer, experimental versions of BESA subtests. In addition, researchers across the country have used the experimental versions of BESA in studies of bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Researchers in Spanish-speaking countries are in the process of using the Spanish version of these measures in research studies.

The Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed in response to the need for valid, reliable instruments for assessment of speech and language ability, along a continuum, in English-Spanish bilingual children ages 4 through 6 years. The BESA is a comprehensive assessment of a child's speech and language abilities in English and Spanish. Two ancillary questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK) can be used to document language exposure and use, allowing the examiner to develop a profile of any parent and teacher concerns. BESA subtests address the domains of phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics separately for both Spanish and English. There are three standardized and norm-referenced subtests addressing language ability, and one criterion-referenced activity allowing observation of pragmatic language. Administration time varies depending on whether or not both languages are tested and which subtests are included. Administration takes between one hour (for one language) and two hours (for both languages). The BIOS is typically completed as part of an interview by the examiner. In this survey, parents are asked about the language exposure history of the child. This information helps the examiner know when and in what context each of the child's two languages were used on a year-to-year basis. In addition, parents and teachers are asked what language the child hears and uses during a typical school day, and during a typical weekend day on an hour-by-hour basis. This information provides clinicians with information about relative use and exposure to each language and can help guide whether to test children in Spanish, English, or both. The parent survey (BIOS-Home) takes 10 to 15 minutes to complete; the teacher survey (BIOS-School) can be completed in 5 to 10 minutes. The ITALK is completed by the examiner as a parent and teacher interview. The ITALK items address relative use of a child's two languages and five areas of speech and language development in Spanish and English (vocabulary, grammar, sentence production, comprehension, and phonology). Parents and teachers are asked to identify the perceived level of the child's performance in each language. This inventory provides a brief indicator of relative language use. It also provides a description of parent and teacher concern and can be used to guide development of the assessment strategy. Results of the inventory can be used to interpret diagnostic results from BESA or other language tests. The ITALK can be completed in 10 minutes or less. The Pragmatics activity is based on Fey's (1986) model of assertiveness and responsiveness. In an interactive format, children are asked to "help wrap a present" with the examiner. Through this realistic situation, obligatory contexts are set up to elicit different assertive and responsive acts. The Pragmatics activity utilizes English, Spanish, or both languages together (via code-switching) depending on the child's preferred language of interaction. The activity should be used to identify children who may encounter difficulties in situations that require the children to be active participants (e.g., classroom). If administered at the beginning of a battery of tests, the Pragmatics activity provides an excellent opportunity to establish rapport with the child and will also provide clinicians with an indication of how collaborative and interactive the child will be during the rest of the assessment. This activity takes 5-10 minutes to complete. The Phonology subtest is a single-word phonological assessment designed primarily to differentially diagnose typical from atypical phonological skills in Spanish-English bilingual children. Analyses are also included that allow the examiner to profile the phonological skills in these children. The assessment includes two measures. The Spanish measure assesses phonological production using 28 Spanish words. The English measure assesses phonological production using 31 English words. The Phonology subtest takes 10 to 15 minutes to administer in each language, depending on the individual child (20 to 30 minutes total). The Morphosyntax subtest employs cloze and sentence repetition tasks to target grammatical morphemes and sentence structures that were predicted to be difficult for children with language impairment in English or Spanish. Forms tested in English include plural -s, possessive -s, past and present tense, third-person singular, progressives, copulas, auxiliary do negatives, and passives, as well as complex verb forms, conjunctions, and embedded prepositions and noun phrases. The English Morphosyntax Subtest has 24 cloze items and 9 sentence repetitions items. Forms tested in Spanish include articles, progressives, clitics, subjunctives, preterite, complex verb forms, and conjunctions. The Spanish Morphosyntax Subtest has 15 cloze items and 10 sentence repetitions items. For each language, a grammatical cloze subscore, a sentence repetition subscore, and a total score that is a composite of those two are derived. The morphosyntax test takes approximately 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The Semantics subtest targets six tasks: analogies, characteristic properties, categorization, functions, linguistic concepts, and similarities and differences. These six item types were based on the literature describing acquisition of semantic breadth and depth in order to tap into how children organize and access their lexical system (Pena, Bedore, & Rappazzo, 2003). The English Semantics subtest has a total of 25 items: 10 receptive and 15 expressive. The Spanish Semantics subtest also has 25 items, 12 receptive and 13 expressive. Scoring allows for code-mixing-giving children credit for a correct response in either language. Subscores are provided for semantics receptive and semantics expressive, as well as a total semantics score for each language. The Semantics subtest takes about 15 minutes to administer in each language (30 minutes total). The BESA is designed to be used with children who speak English, Spanish, or both languages. The BESA subtests are psychometrically sound and yield scaled and standard scores for each of the domain tests (phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics). The questionnaires provide criterion-based guidelines to determine language(s) of testing and to develop an assessment strategy. The tests can be used together for a complete speech and language battery or the examiner may select tests specific to the diagnostic question. Presently, the test is appropriate for children between the ages of 4;0 and 6;11. The BESA can be used (a) to identify language impairment in bilingual and monolingual Latino children, (b) to document progress in speech and language related to intervention, (c) to document the dominant language in each domain including morphosyntax, semantics, and phonology, and (d) in research studies of bilingual children with and without language impairment. The BESA is specifically designed to assess the speech and language of English-Spanish bilingual children's two languages. The primary use of the BESA is to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and EL children via a standardized protocol. The objective scores obtained on the BESA across three domains can be used in combination with clinical observations, language samples, as well as with other standardized measures to identify children with speech and/or language impairment. Through use of a combination of BESA subtests, clinicians can document children's speech and language strengths and needs. A second use of the BESA is to monitor children's progress in speech and language. After initiation of a speech and language intervention program, children's progress should be regularly documented. It is recommended that daily probes be used to monitor children's session-to-session progress. This information should be used to make decisions about the direction of the intervention. The BESA is sensitive to year-to-year changes in children's speech and language growth and the particular language in which progress is being made. Thus, in addition to the more sensitive measures of daily progress, the BESA can be administered at broader intervals (e.g., annually or semi-annually) to gauge progress in a specific program of intervention, to document continued need for intervention, and to document achievement of treatment goals for exiting services. Documentation of a bilingual's dominant language is a challenge in school settings. Many children who have exposure to more than one language demonstrate mixed dominance, whereby they perform higher in one language in one domain, but higher in the other language in a different domain. It is therefore important to know what a child's relative dominance is across different domains of speech and language. This information can be useful for planning intervention, as well as for planning educational programming for bilingual children. Together, the BIOS-Home and BIOS-School provide an objective measure of children's input and output of Spanish and English. This information helps speech-language pathologists, parents, teachers, and administrators know how much the child hears and uses each language and in what contexts. This information is independent of performance, which can be affected by child characteristics such as language ability. In addition to the BIOS, the Spanish and English standardized test scores can be compared directly for phonology, morphosyntax, and semantics to determine a child's best language for a particular domain. If children's standard scores across domains are within 5 points of each other, we consider them to be balanced. There are a number of ways that the BESA subtests can be used in research. ITALK can be used to gain parent and teacher observations about the child's performance across five domains of speech and language in Spanish and English as part of qualifying data for a study. BIOS can be used to document weekly input and output in Spanish and English as a way of grouping children by language experience and/or by year of first exposure. For bilingual children with language impairment, BIOS provides a measure that is independent of their test performance on speech and language tasks. The three domain subtests can be used together or independently to assess children's speech and language. These can be used to qualify children for a study or to group children by ability. As of this writing, the authors have conducted and published several studies with the longer, experimental versions of BESA subtests. In addition, researchers across the country have used the experimental versions of BESA in studies of bilingual Spanish-English speakers. Researchers in Spanish-speaking countries are in the process of using the Spanish version of these measures in research studies.

When a young bilingual child experiences language difficulties, it can be hard to tell if those challenges are due to a disorder or just limited exposure to the English language. That's a critical distinction--because while limited language exposure will fix itself over time, a language impairment is a clinical issue that will cause the child difficulties in school without timely and effective intervention. Now there's a valid, reliable assessment that specifically responds to the needs of young Spanish-English bilingual children. For use with children ages 4 through 6 years who have varying degrees of bilingualism, the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment (BESA) was developed to: - identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual children and English language learners using a standardized protocol - differentiate between a delay in English language acquisition and a true language disorder - document children's speech and language strengths and needs - monitor children's progress in both languages and use the information to make decisions about intervention. What's in the kit? - 1 BESA Test Manual - 1 BESA Stimulus Book - 20 BESA Protocol English Forms - 20 BESA Protocol Spanish Forms - 20 BIOS Forms - 20 ITALK forms.