For children who are learning more than one language, emergent bilingual screening needs to answer two different questions carefully: Is the child developing language as expected across their languages, and is the child receiving the right educational language support? When teams rush that process, a bilingual child can be mislabeled as having a language disorder, missed when a disorder is present, or placed in an English learner category that does not match the child’s actual language profile.
That concern is not theoretical. A 2026 Arizona study by Moen, Restrepo, and Smith tested 24 Spanish-English bilingual kindergarteners ages 5 to 6 in Phoenix. Only 54.2% were placed correctly as English learner, developmental language disorder, both, or neither; 45.8% were misclassified in some way, including under-identification of developmental language disorder, over-identification of developmental language disorder, or over-identification as English learners according to the PubMed record.
The sample was small and focused on Spanish-English kindergarteners in one city, so it should not be stretched to every child, language, or school system. Still, the findings give parents, educators, and speech-language pathologists a useful warning: a single form, single test, or single-language snapshot can lead to the wrong answer.
Why emergent bilingual screening Can Misclassify Children
One Language Sample Is Often Too Narrow
A bilingual child’s language knowledge is not always evenly divided across both languages. A child may know home routines, family vocabulary, and emotional language in one language while using classroom words in another. If a screening task samples only English, the result may look weaker than the child’s full communication ability. If it samples only the home language, it may miss how much the child can already do in English.
The Arizona study also pointed to a practical problem with home language information. In several cases, home language surveys listed only English even though parents reported some Spanish input. That meant children with bilingual language experience did not receive the initial English learner screening that might have clarified their profile. This kind of mismatch does not mean families did anything wrong. It often means the questions were not specific enough, or families interpreted them differently than schools expected.
Disorder And Difference Can Look Similar On The Surface
Typical bilingual development can include uneven vocabulary across languages, pauses while searching for a word, or use of features from both languages in the same conversation. Those patterns alone do not prove a disorder. At the same time, being bilingual does not protect a child from developmental language disorder. A true language disorder affects the child’s ability to learn and use language, so teams need evidence from both languages and more than one setting.
That is why best practice is not to ask, “Does this child sound like a monolingual English speaker?” A more useful question is, “What can this child understand and express across the languages and situations that are part of daily life?”
What Strong Screening Includes Before A Label
emergent bilingual screening Starts With Family History
Good early screening begins with a careful language history. Teams should ask which languages the child hears and uses, when each language was introduced, who uses each language with the child, and how language use changes across home, school, peers, siblings, and adults. For young children who are dual language learners, Head Start guidance says screening should occur in the child’s home language or languages when possible; if that is not possible, programs should use two or more sources, such as parent or caregiver report, observations, and checklists as described by Head Start.
Parents can help by describing real communication, not just listing words. For example, does the child follow directions in Spanish with grandparents? Tell stories in English after preschool? Ask for help using gestures and words? Understand more than they say? Those details help teams see a broader picture than a short screening session can show.
Use Several Sources, Not One Score
A stronger process combines information from parent report, teacher observation, direct interaction, language sampling, and screening tools designed for bilingual children when available. Research notes on the Arizona sample reported use of the Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment and narrative tasks. The BESA was normed for ages 4 to 6 and, in the research notes provided, showed sensitivity for diagnosing developmental language disorder of 88.9% for 5-year-olds and 96.0% for 6-year-olds, with specificity of 84.9% for age 5 and 92.4% for age 6.
Those figures are useful, but no tool should be treated as perfect. Screening is a decision-making step, not the whole evaluation. If a child’s results, family report, and classroom communication do not line up, the team should pause before assigning a label and gather more information.
Practical Steps For Parents And Educators
Parents and educators can make emergent bilingual screening more accurate by preparing information before the meeting and by asking how the child’s full language experience will be considered. A child who uses two languages may need a different evidence pattern than a monolingual child, especially during preschool and kindergarten.
- Write down language exposure. Note which languages the child hears and uses with each family member, caregiver, teacher, and peer group.
- Share examples from daily routines. Include how the child asks for help, tells about events, follows directions, plays, sings, or retells familiar stories.
- Ask what languages were screened. If only English was used, ask how the team will account for the home language.
- Request observation across settings. Classroom behavior, play, mealtime, and family conversation can show different communication strengths.
- Watch for persistence across both languages. Concern is stronger when difficulties appear in both languages and across familiar settings.
For families wanting practical home routines that respect both languages, bilingual development resources can support shared reading, conversation, and realistic milestone checks without treating one language as a problem.
Creative language activities can also help adults notice what children understand and express during low-pressure moments. For example, families who enjoy artistic practices like drawing or storytelling may explore visual journaling. Further inspiration can be found at The Sketchbook Project, which offers ideas for using pictures as prompts for conversation.
How Teams Can Interpret Results With More Care
Look For Patterns Across Both Languages
A child who has limited vocabulary in English but communicates well in the home language may need English language support rather than speech-language therapy. A child who struggles to learn new words, follow age-appropriate directions, or build sentences in both languages may need closer monitoring or a full speech-language evaluation. The key is pattern recognition across languages, not a single low score.
Dynamic assessment can be especially helpful because it looks at how a child learns with support. For example, an adult may teach a story structure, model new vocabulary, or support a sound pattern, then watch how quickly the child responds. The research notes identify dynamic assessment, narrative sampling, oral language sampling, and phonological and morphosyntactic analysis across languages as parts of a convergence-of-evidence approach.
Be Honest About What Screening Cannot Prove
emergent bilingual screening can flag risk and guide next steps, but it cannot answer every diagnostic question by itself. A brief school screening may be affected by fatigue, shyness, limited rapport, unfamiliar tasks, or the language used by the examiner. A child may also perform differently with a familiar caregiver than with a new adult.
That uncertainty should not delay support when a child clearly needs help. It should change the quality of the decision-making. Teams can provide classroom language support, monitor progress, gather home-language information, and refer for a fuller evaluation when concerns persist across evidence sources.
Misclassification Of Emergent Bilinguals In Early Screening
Misclassification can affect both access and expectations. Over-identifying a language disorder may lead adults to underestimate a child’s bilingual learning. Under-identifying a disorder may delay needed speech-language support. Over-identifying a child as an English learner may place the child in services that do not match their actual English proficiency.
The most defensible approach is cautious, collaborative, and language-aware. Families bring knowledge of the child’s everyday communication. Educators bring classroom observations and curriculum demands. Speech-language pathologists bring expertise in language development, disorder, and assessment limits. When these sources are combined, emergent bilingual screening becomes less about sorting children quickly and more about understanding how each child communicates across real life.
For parents, the practical question to ask is simple: “How did you consider both of my child’s languages before deciding what this result means?” A team that can answer that clearly is more likely to protect the child from a label that is too broad, too narrow, or simply wrong.
