Use the Houston Questionnaire to understand bilingual child self-report, language exposure, and limits in Spanish-English proficiency checks.
Jenna Brooks
How to Use Family Photos to Encourage Conversation and Storytelling
Family photos are usually treated as keepsakes, not language tools. Yet family photos for language development can give children something generic picture cards cannot: a familiar event they may remember, care about, and want to discuss. That familiarity can turn “Who is this?” into a longer exchange about what happened, Continue Reading
Bilingual Language Activities That Support Growth
Use bilingual language activities with clear goals, shared reading, explicit teaching, and family routines grounded in recent child language research.
Bilingual Narrative Skills: Intervention Insights
Support bilingual narrative skills with evidence-based story retell, parent coaching, and practical progress checks for young children.
Bilingual Development Resources for Parents
Use Bilingual Development Resources to support home language, speech milestones, reading routines, and realistic progress checks for young children.
Expressive Vocabulary Strategies for Bilingual Kids
Support expressive vocabulary in young bilingual children with book reading, home-language input, practice, and realistic progress tracking.
Researchers Test a New Way to Help Autistic Children Communicate
For a young autistic child, an AAC device can provide another way to communicate—but only if the system fits naturally into the interaction. New Nebraska research on visual scene display AAC asks whether familiar photographs can make communication support easier to weave into play instead of repeatedly pulling a child’s Continue Reading
Copy Your Baby’s Sounds Back: Why Timing May Matter More Than Talking More
A baby makes an “oooh,” squeals, or strings together a few playful sounds. What happens in the next few seconds may be more useful than filling the room with another minute of adult talk. Responding to baby babble can be as simple as copying the sound, smiling, and leaving enough Continue Reading
A Free Book in the Mail Helps Most When Families Talk About It
Interactive book sharing begins when a child and caregiver treat a book as something to talk about, point to, act out, and revisit—not just something to finish. A free book in the mail can open the door, but the language growth comes from what families do together on the pages. Continue Reading
AI Story Play for Kids Needs Human Turn-Taking
AI story play for kids is arriving fast, from story generators to talking characters and personalized reading tools. These tools may help children imagine new plots, but language learning still depends on something technology cannot fully supply: a real person who listens, responds, waits, and helps the child take another Continue Reading