Bilingual Children's Language Research Articles

Developing automaticity in neural speech discrimination in typically developing bilingual Italian-German and monolingual German children.

Many studies have shown that input in more than one language influences children's phonemic development. In this study, we examined the neural processes supporting perception of Voice Onset Time (VOT) in bilingual Italian-German children and their monolingual German peers. While German contrasts short-lag and long-lag, Italian contrasts short-lag and voicing lead. We examined whether bilinguals' phonetic/phonological systems for the two languages develop independently or whether they influence each other, and what role language input plays in the formation of phonetic/phonological categories. Forty five-year-old children (16 monolingual German, 24 bilingual Italian-German) were tested in an oddball design expected to elicit a neural Mismatch Response (MMR). The stimuli were bilabial stop VOT contrasts with the short-lag stop, common to both languages, as the standard. Four deviant VOTs were selected: 92 ms and 36 ms lag for German; 112 ms and 36 ms voicing lead for Italian. Bilingual children's language background was assessed using a caregiver questionnaire. Italian-German bilingual 5-year-old children and German monolingual controls showed similar MMRs to German long-lag and Italian voicing lead VOT, except for the 36 ms long-lag deviant; this acoustically difficult distinction did not elicit a robust negative MMR in the bilingual children. The lack of a difference between the bilinguals and monolinguals for voicing lead suggests that the amount of input in Italian for the bilinguals was not sufficient to lead to an advantage compared to the monolingual German children. Alternatively, the finding could indicate that voicing lead is easier to discriminate than voicing lag.

The Use of Language Sample Analysis to Differentiate Developmental Language Disorder From Typical Language in Bilingual Children: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

Language sample analysis (LSA) is a commonly recommended method of assessment for bilingual children. This systematic review and meta-analysis provides a comprehensive overview of the literature on the use of LSA to differentiate between developmental language disorder (DLD) and typical language (TL) in bilingual children. We conducted a search of several large electronic databases along with forward and backward searches and applied abstract and full-text screening procedures to identify all relevant studies. We then estimated standardized mean differences, representing the ability of LSA to differentiate between DLD and TL, using multilevel model and subgroup and moderator analyses to identify characteristics of LSA that may be associated with differences in effect size magnitude. We conducted assessments of publication bias and risk of bias by examining quality indicators for each study. The search yielded 35 articles that met the inclusion criteria. Participants ranged in age from 2;0 (years;months) to 11;9, with over 40 languages represented. Across studies, the pooled standardized mean difference indicated that children with DLD performed 0.78 SD lower on LSA measures than those with TL. Measures of morphosyntactic accuracy exhibited the largest pooled effect size. Elicitation method, language of task, and age were not associated with differences in effect size. Results of this study provide evidence of the clinical utility of LSA in differentiating between DLD and TL in bilingual children. Further research is needed to examine classification accuracy as well as task characteristics that may improve its diagnostic utility.

Disfluencies as a window to macrostructure performance in the narrative of bilingual children

Disfluencies mirror processes of speech production and when examined in both languages of bilingual children, can provide valuable information regarding their linguistic skills. The aim of this study is to characterize the rates and the types of disfluencies across episodes of a narrative as well as across different story grammar (SG) elements in participants’ home language (Russian) and societal language (Hebrew) as a reflection of narrative macrostructure skills. Twenty bilingual Russian-Hebrew children aged 60–78 months produced narratives in Russian and Hebrew using the wordless picture book Frog, Where Are You? (Mayer, 1969). Narratives were transcribed, divided into five episodes, and coded for main SG elements (Character + Setting, Initiating event, Internal response, Plan, Attempt and Consequence). Four types of disfluencies (silent pauses, filled pauses, repetitions, and self-corrections) were analyzed in relation to each SG element per episode in both languages. Overall children produced more SG elements in Russian with a finer analysis showing that Initiating Event, Character and Setting differed across languages while Attempt, Plan and Internal response were similar. Disfluencies significantly impacted macrostructure differently across languages such that in Russian, a high percentage of disfluencies was associated with higher production of Character + Setting and Plan, whereas in Hebrew it was associated with lower production of Attempt and Consequence. The present research suggests that disfluency has impact on macrostructure, and consequently on overall narrative quality differently across the languages. The theoretical contribution may shed light on the understanding of planning and formulation processes among bilingual children. The application of the results may relate to these processes impacting diagnosis and/or intervention protocols in bilingual children.

Family language policy and vocabulary of bilingual children across different ages

Family language policy explores planning of home language use and is thought to shape language acquisition. Historically, heritage languages have often been considered ‘low prestige’. In Israel, there are immigrants speaking English, a global lingua franca, as a heritage language. This study focuses on characterizing the language policies of this unique community. It explores how these policies affect bilingual children's language through the investigation of vocabulary. Data was collected via questionnaires from English-Hebrew bilingual children (n = 82, ages 5; 1–14; 1) and their parents. Children's receptive and expressive vocabulary was assessed in both languages. Results show that this group of heritage speakers is distinct as the heritage language is sometimes perceived as more important than the societal language. Nonetheless, parents adopt a balanced pro-bilingualism approach. English is considered instrumental in connecting with family. Hebrew is beneficial for communicating with the community. Statistically significant correlations indicate a directional relationship between family language policy and vocabulary. Multiple regression analyses explored the contribution of family language policy variables to vocabulary outcomes, controlling for chronological age and age of onset of bilingualism. Findings allude that the relationship is complex; speaking English at home may predict English, and encouraging English use with friends may negatively predict Hebrew.

Reasons for migration, parental acculturation, and language: the case of Chinese American and Mexican American parents and dual language learners.

Migration is a complex process associated with a range of social, economic, and political reasons. In the U.S., almost one-quarter of the total population of parents are immigrant parents of children ages 0-10. Immigrant parents transmit values from their culture of origin as well as their language to their children. Additionally, they may undergo a process of cultural and psychological change known as acculturation. Research has shown that acculturation can be linked to parenting styles and adolescents' psychological well-being and behavioral problems. However, little is known about the associations among immigrant parents' acculturation, their home language and literacy practices, and their bilingual children's language skills. This study explores the relationships among reasons for migration, parental acculturation, home language and literacy practices, and child expressive vocabulary in English and their heritage language (HL). A group of 190 Spanish-English (N = 66) and Chinese-English (N = 124) dual language learners (DLLs) (mean age = 48.98 months) and their Chinese and Mexican parents (mean age of migration = 18.57 and 21.38 years old respectively participated. Frequency counts revealed that Mexican American families migrated to the U.S. mostly for multiple reasons, including joining family members, getting married, and looking for better education or job opportunities, whereas most Chinese American families migrated for family reasons only. Path analysis models showed that, for both cultural groups, language input in Spanish and Chinese mediated the relationship between parents' cultural orientations and DLLs' HL expressive vocabulary. These findings emphasize that despite the heterogeneity of immigrant families and the variability in DLLs' vocabulary skills in preschool, there exist some similarities across immigrant parents and bilingual children. A deeper understanding of acculturation practices and home language use can help educators better support children from diverse backgrounds and promote cultural awareness and sensitivity in the classroom.

Parental reports on the lexicon of children from diverse bilingual populations.

Parental questionnaires have been widely used to assess children's vocabularies. The MacArthur-Bates Communicative Developmental Inventories (MB-CDI) have been adapted into over 100 languages, providing researchers with access to various languages. As the vocabularies of bilingual children are distributed across their two languages, language knowledge must be assessed in both languages. While this can be done with two questionnaires, one for each language, the present study makes use of a multicultural adaptation of the MB-CDI, within a single questionnaire, that was geared specifically for bilingual context. In order to explore the developmental trajectories of the vocabularies of 90 bilingual children from diverse linguistic populations (English-Hebrew (n = 30), French-Hebrew (n = 30), and Russian-Hebrew (n = 30) speaking families) parents reported on both the Home Language (HL) and the Societal Language-Hebrew (SL-Hebrew). Parents also provided background information about the child, the child's family, and exposure to each language. Our findings show no significant difference between vocabulary size of children from diverse bilingual populations in the HL and the SL, for both production and comprehension. Moreover, children from all three groups demonstrate balanced bilingualism at the group level. Correlations were found between both exposure to and use of each language by children, and various vocabulary measures across the three groups. The similar vocabulary levels demonstrated by the three groups as well as the balanced bilingualism can be explained by the relatively high prestige of all languages tested. Exposure to each language shows support in that language and a negative effect on the other language, demonstrating the crucial role exposure plays in bilingual children's language performance.

Comparison of Acquisition of Tense Markers in Oral and Written Language in Bilingual Children

Abstract: Tense acquisition plays a crucial role in the language development of children. Tense refers to the grammatical expression of time in a sentence, which can be in the past, present, or future. Children begin to learn about tenses from a very young age and gradually acquire the ability to use them accurately as they develop their language skills. The present study aims to describe the comparison of the acquisition of tense markers in the oral and written language of 8 to 12-year-old MalayalamEnglish bilingual children. The study involves 20 typically developing children, studying in regular schools with English as the medium of instruction. Two tasks were selected, which included oral and written picture descriptions and narration. The results revealed that, in 8 to 10-year-old children, the acquisition of the simple present tense for both oral and written tasks in Malayalam and English was non significant and the acquisition of the simple past tense for both tasks in Malayalam and English was significant. However, the acquisition of the simple future tense in oral tasks for both languages was significant, while the written performance for future tense acquisition in both languages was non significant. For children aged 11 to 13 years, the acquisition of the simple present tense for oral and written tasks in Malayalam and English was inconclusive and the acquisition of the simple past tense for oral and written tasks in both Malayalam and English was non significant. The acquisition of the future tense for oral tasks was significant whereas for written tasks, it was inconclusive in both languages.

Using multiple measures of language dominance and proficiency in Farsi-English bilingual children

This paper aims to identify effective means of measuring dominance and proficiency in bilingual children. Thirty-seven Farsi-English Heritage language speaking children from 6;1 to 11;6 were assessed on their vocabulary, morphosyntax, and narrative microstructure skills in both languages to address whether there is a difference between their proficiency in Farsi as a heritage and English as a majority language, how the scores on the vocabulary, morphosyntax, and narrative microstructure tasks relate to one another, and based on the results of each task in both languages if any of the children are at risk for a Developmental Language Disorder. Vocabulary was assessed using the LITMUS- Cross-Linguistic Lexical Task (CLT), morphosyntax using the LITMUS-Sentence Repetition (SR) tasks, and Narrative microstructure using the LITMUS-Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives (MAIN). Individual language proficiency was identified via an in-depth profile analysis for each participant who looked at their performance on all experimental tasks in both languages. The data demonstrated that on the vocabulary and narrative tasks the participants were more dominant in English than in Farsi, while on the sentence repetition task there were no significant differences between the two languages. Correlation analyses showed that vocabulary scores were strongly correlated to the sentence repetition scores and the microstructure scores. The English and Farsi sentence repetition scores also correlated moderately with the microstructure scores within each language. Profile analysis showed that no child within the study scored < 1.5 or 2 standard deviations below the mean on more than two tasks in both languages. However, interesting patterns emerged indicating that some participants had a greater proficiency in one language vs. the other language. The results from this study showed that measuring language within a single domain (e.g., morphosyntax) is not enough to identify a bilingual child's language dominance and/or proficiency. Instead, an in-depth profile analysis and language assessments across various language domains need to be done in order to appropriately measure language dominance and proficiency. Consequently, this study supports the importance of measuring language across multiple domains in studies of bilingual children. The clinical significance of appropriately identifying language dominance and proficiency was also shown, as such information would allow clinicians to make more appropriate clinical decisions.

Bilingual Children Shift and Relax Second-Language Phoneme Categorization in Response to Accented L2 and Native L1 Speech Exposure.

Listeners adjust their perception to match that of presented speech through shifting and relaxation of categorical boundaries. This allows for processing of speech variation, but may be detrimental to processing efficiency. Bilingual children are exposed to many types of speech in their linguistic environment, including native and non-native speech. This study examined how first language (L1) Spanish/second language (L2) English bilingual children shifted and relaxed phoneme categorization along the cue of voice onset time (VOT) during English speech processing after three types of language exposure: native English exposure, native Spanish exposure, and Spanish-accented English exposure. After exposure to Spanish-accented English speech, bilingual children shifted categorical boundaries in the direction of native English speech boundaries. After exposure to native Spanish speech, children shifted to a smaller extent in the same direction and relaxed boundaries leading to weaker differentiation between categories. These results suggest that prior exposure can affect processing of a second language in bilingual children, but different mechanisms are used when adapting to different types of speech variation.

Audiovisual translation: A reception study on Bilingual child language brokers’ linguistic and cultural competences

This paper presents an empirical pilot study conducted from July through September 2019 at César Chávez Elementary School, a public, bilingual English/Spanish primary school in the city of San Francisco (California, USA).
 The research was based on the hypothesis that children enrolled in such bilingual educational programs are exposed to linguistic and cultural content in English and Spanish, and will therefore differentiate the contents of the bilingual audiovisual products they consume both linguistically and culturally.
 The aim was to assess the possible impact of bilingual audiovisual products on the acquisition of linguistic and cultural competences by child language brokers in the bilingual educational system of the USA, a country with more than forty years’ experience in this type of education.
 The research tools used to collect and analyze the data were interviews and experimental tests.
 The conclusions allow us firstly to determine whether audiovisual products are effectively used as a teaching tool in school and, secondly, to assess the use of audiovisual products as a methodological instrument in USA primary education bilingual programs. They can also help us track the origins of child language brokering in a bilingual context.

COVID-19 and bilingual children's home language environment: Digital media, socioeconomic status, and language status.

Input is considered crucial in bilingual children's language development. This is especially true for bilingual children's mother tongue language learning given its common reduction in input opportunities due to the dominance of one language within society, as seen in countries and regions from Wales to Singapore. Previous studies tend to focus on the quantity and quality of conventional active communication and resources (e.g., speaking and reading with parents) on bilingual children's language development, and substantially, fewer studies have explored this topic from the perspective of digital media. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has accentuated the critical role of digital media in various aspects of life, including bilingual children's home language environment. Thus, to holistically understand bilingual children's daily language input patterns, it is imperative to explore both their conventional and digital media input resources. The current study focuses on English-Mandarin bilingual children in Singapore and would like to explore (1) whether their conventional and digital media language environments have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and (2) whether the societal status of a language and familial socioeconomic status (SES) would affect bilingual children's conventional and digital media input. Survey data from 162 parents of English-Mandarin bilingual preschoolers (3 to 6 years old) were used to explore the two research questions. Two online parental questionnaires were employed for data collection. One-way repeated-measures MANOVA and path models were used to address the questions. The results indicated that input patterns from nuclear family members had not been affected by COVID-19; however, the amount and frequency of conventional and digital media materials and activities increased significantly since COVID-19. Higher-SES families possessed more conventional materials and conducted conventional activities more often, while lower-SES families possessed more digital media materials. Both conventional and digital media materials and activities were richer in English than in Mandarin. Higher-SES families perceived digital media usage for learning to be of less importance than lower-SES families. The implications for early bilingual learning following COVID-19 are discussed.

Vocabulary skills of bilingual children: The evidence for context‐dependent performance

AbstractMost bilingual children often display greater proficiency and preference for one of their two languages. Researchers refer to this asymmetry as language dominance. However, despite being possible to determine the overall language dominance in bilinguals, there may be substantial flexibility in their language use. In particular, the relative ease of using each language may depend on the sociolinguistic context and the language of the interlocutor which may affect the ease of accessing words in a given language. In the present work, we investigate whether and how the sociolinguistic context in an International English medium school influences bilingual children's vocabulary production. Specifically, we examine whether bilingual first‐grade children's expressive vocabulary skills vary as a function of the linguistic context (Home/School) and the language (English/Spanish) of their conversational partner. Results showed that contextual factors interacted with child's language performance. The participants' ability to name objects in Spanish was affected by the conversational partner's language, and their ability to name Home‐context words varied by language. The findings of this investigation highlight the importance of considering sociolinguistic factors when evaluating bilingual children's language skills.

Benefits of English for Preschool Children. The Case Study of a Bilingual School in Italy

The research aims at investigating the communicative abilities of Italian children in a bilingual (English-Italian) preschool, focusing on the benefits of bilingualism in children’s cognitive, social, and cultural growth. After an introduction on the role of bilingual education in early childhood in promoting a child’s life-long love of language and bilingual proficiency, through the support of some European documents and key studies in the field, the research design is presented. A variety of instruments were used, such as video recorded class observations, field notes and observation sheets, semi-structured interviews with L1 and L2 teachers and structured interviews with children, questionnaires for parents, as well as language knowledge tests for children and teachers. Children’s lexicon development was taken into consideration, especially the frequency of use of English language, thus showing a significant growth of the perceptive and productive lexicon for the investigated age range. This provided evidence that the children in this study were still at the sensitive age for lexicon acquisition. The linguistic phenomena that, among the preschool children, were practised the most were: code-switching and code-mixing. This study provided new findings on the early acquisition of English language in bilingual children with the home language Italian. This language experience usually takes place along five dimensions: the materiality of language and its use, children’s perceptions about them, beliefs about self and others in the speech community, emotional responses about language and about language users.

Multimodal language in bilingual and monolingual children: Gesture production and speech disfluency

AbstractBilingual and monolingual children might have different styles of using multimodal language. This study investigates speech disfluency and gesture production of 5- and 7-year-old Turkish monolingual (N = 61) and Turkish–English bilingual children (N = 51). We examined monolinguals’ Turkish narratives and bilinguals’ Turkish and English narratives. Results indicated that bilinguals were more disfluent than monolinguals, particularly for silent and filled (e.g., umm) pauses. Bilinguals used silent pauses and repetitions (e.g., cat cat) more frequently in English than in Turkish. Gesture use was comparable across language and age groups, except for iconic gestures. Monolinguals produced more iconic gestures than bilinguals. Children's overall gesture frequency predicted disfluency rates only in Turkish. Different gesture types might be orchestrated in the multimodal system, contributing to narrative fluency. The use of disfluency and gesture types might provide insight into bilingual and monolingual children's language development and communication strategies.

Individual Differences in Bilingual Child Language Acquisition: A plunge into a Complex and Dynamic Network.

Large individual differences in language skills are well documented in monolingual children (e.g., Kidd, Donnelly & Christiansen, 2018). In bilinguals, the broad variation is even more pronounced. Interestingly, some bilingual children might be weak in their Heritage Language (HL, also labeled as Minority Language, Home Language, Community Language), to which they have naturalistic exposure from birth. Others might be weak in their Societal Language (SL), the language of the surrounding and educational environment. Large individual differences are observed in neurotypical bilingually exposed children as well as in their bilingually raised peers with developmental language disorder, autism spectrum disorder, and hearing impairment (see also Armon-Lotem & Meir, 2016; Meir & Novogrodsky, 2020). Figure 1 visualizes individual differences in morphosyntactic skills of monolingual and bilingual children with typical language development aged 5;5-6;8 as indexed by the LITMUS Sentence Repetition tasks (the data are drawn from Armon-Lotem & Meir, 2016; Meir, 2018). While monolingual preschool children (MonoRU and MonoHE) show little variation, bilinguals with different levels of dominance (balanced bilinguals: BB; HL dominant: HL-D; SL dominant: SL-D) as determined by standardized tests exhibit large individual differences within each language and across their two languages.

Curriculum-Based Dynamic Assessment of Narratives for Bilingual Filipino Children.

Speech-language pathologists need tools that can accurately estimate bilingual children's language abilities and thus help avoid misdiagnoses. This study addresses this need by investigating the accuracy of a novel curriculum-based dynamic assessment of narratives in distinguishing bilingual children with language difficulties (LDs) from children with typically developing (TD) language. Participants comprised 34 Filipino-English bilingual children attending elementary school in English: seven with LDs and 27 with TD language. All children were assessed on narrative skills relevant to their school curriculum during a dynamic assessment involving a test-teach-test sequence. We then examined how accurately the children's scores on narrative tasks completed during the test phases, and on a modifiability rating scale completed during the teaching phase, discriminated the LD and TD groups. According to discriminant analyses, logistic regressions, and receiver operating characteristic curve analyses, the modifiability rating classified the children with 97.1% accuracy. Children's scores on the narrative measures following the teaching phase were also better at predicting language group than their initial scores, with the Test of Narrative Language-Second Edition (TNL-2) Narrative Language Ability Index score reaching 100% accuracy at posttest. The curriculum-based dynamic assessment of narratives shows promise at distinguishing TD language from LD in a group of understudied bilingual children that is rapidly growing in both Canada and the United States. The findings compare favorably to past studies of dynamic assessment and extend this work by integrating curricular goals to the narrative assessment process.

Working towards diagnosing bilingual children's language abilities: issues for teachers in Wales

One area of concern within a bilingual context relates to the appropriate ‘diagnostic’ assessment of bilingual children’s language abilities and to the suitable application of their assessment results in practice. Communication and language difficulties are numerous and complex, and manifest themselves in a variety of ways that are captured to different degrees via standardised tests. Such tools are readily available – often in multiple forms – in some languages, such as English, but less readily available in others. This is particularly the case for minority languages such as Welsh, and this poses great difficulty when aiming for a certain type of assessment of specific language abilities. This paper outlines the current state of diagnostic assessment tools for Welsh, with a specific focus on measures of literacy abilities. Drawing on research evidence from the Welsh context, we argue for appropriate training of educators in this area, and for the urgent need to develop tools that are both language and context specific, with relevant bilingual speaker norms, that have practical applications in the classroom, to ensure equitable and relevant diagnosis and support for all children educated in Wales.

Working towards diagnosing bilingual children's language abilities: issues for teachers in Wales

Mae un maes sy’n peri pryder o fewn cyd-destun dwyieithog yn ymwneud â’r asesiad ‘diagnostig’ priodol o alluoedd iaith plant dwyieithog a chymhwyso eu canlyniadau asesu’n briodol mewn ymarfer. Mae anawsterau cyfathrebu ac iaith yn niferus a chymhleth, ac yn amlygu eu hunain mewn amrywiaeth o ffyrdd sy’n cael eu cofnodi i wahanol raddau drwy brofion safonedig. Mae adnoddau o’r fath ar gael yn rhwydd – yn aml mewn sawl ffurf – mewn rhai ieithoedd, megis Saesneg, ond nid ydynt ar gael mor rhwydd mewn ieithoedd eraill. Mae hyn yn arbennig o wir yn achos ieithoedd lleiafrifol fel y Gymraeg, ac mae hyn yn peri anhawster mawr wrth geisio cynnal math penodol o asesiad o alluoedd iaith penodol. Mae’r papur hwn yn amlinellu cyflwr cyfredol adnoddau asesu diagnostig ar gyfer y Gymraeg, gan ganolbwyntio’n benodol ar fesuriadau o alluoedd llythrennedd. Gan fanteisio ar dystiolaeth ymchwil o’r cyd-destun Cymreig, rydym yn dadlau o blaid hyfforddi addysgwyr yn briodol yn y maes hwn, a thros yr angen brys i ddatblygu adnoddau sy’n benodol i iaith a chyd-destun, gyda normau siaradwyr dwyieithog perthnasol, sydd â defnydd ymarferol yn yr ystafell ddosbarth, i sicrhau diagnosis a chefnogaeth deg a pherthnasol i bob plentyn sy’n cael ei addysgu yng Nghymru.

A sojourning multilingual family's sense-making in a science museum: A repertoire approach

Despite a growing scholarly interest in bilingual children's heritage language learning, little attention has been paid to how sojourner children learn their heritage languages in content areas at home and in their communities in preparation for return to their home country. This study examined how a Korean sojourner child, Jun, and his mother employed semiotic resources to create learning opportunities for Jun to engage with science discourse in a local science museum and expand his linguistic repertoires. Using ethnographic and multimodal interaction analysis methods, I analyzed Jun and his mother's interactions in a local science museum ten times over 18 months. Findings revealed that Jun's family created translanguaging spaces to meet their needs, such as learning and using their heritage language in the scientific examination. This study calls for partnership between parents and teachers and between schools and local museums to provide learning opportunities for sojourning multilingual children and families.

Dual Language Profiles in Spanish-Speaking English Learners.

The purpose of this study was to identify and describe latent dual language profiles in a large sample of school-age Spanish-English bilingual children designated as English learners (ELs) by their school district. Data for this study include 847 Spanish-speaking ELs from kindergarten to third grade. Spanish and English narrative retell language samples were collected from all participants. Four oral language measures were calculated in Spanish and English, including the subordination index, moving average type-token ratio, narrative structure scheme (NSS), and words per minute using Systematic Analysis of Language Transcript. These indicator measures were used in a latent profile analysis to identify dual language profiles. The optimal model represents a four-profile solution, including a Spanish-dominant group (average Spanish, low English), an English-dominant group (low Spanish, average English), and two balanced groups (a balanced-average group and a balanced-high group). Additionally, participants displayed uneven performance across language domains and distinct patterns of unique strength or weakness in a specific domain in one of their two languages. Findings from this study highlight the large variability in English and Spanish oral language abilities in school-age Spanish-speaking ELs and suggest that a dichotomous classification of ELs versus English-proficient students may not be sufficient to determine the type of educational program that best fits a specific bilingual child's need. These findings highlight the need to assess both languages across multiple language domains to paint a representative picture of a bilingual child's language abilities. The dual language profiles identified may be used to guide the educational program selection process to improve the congruence among the linguistic needs of an individual child, teachers' use of instructional language, and the goals of the educational program (i.e., improving English proficiency vs. supporting dual language development). https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.20151836.