Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment™ (BESA™): Set

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...
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