Have ZERO dollars in your therapy closet for bilingual Spanish assessments? You are not alone — and you are not stuck. In this episode, I walk you through the 8-step gold-standard process for assessing bilingual Spanish-English preschoolers for speech sound disorders, every single step backed by free, vetted, research-supported tools.

This is the same framework recommended by Sharynne McLeod, Sarah Verdon, and the International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech (McLeod, Verdon, & IEPMCS, 2017, AJSLP) — taught to you in plain English with direct links you can click today.

You'll learn how to:

• Capture a true language profile 
• Sample BOTH languages without overdiagnosing dialect features
• Use narrow IPA transcription so you don't mislabel allophones as errors
• Distinguish a transfer error from a true speech sound disorder

Free Resources Mentioned

Step 1 — Language Profile Alberta Language Environment Questionnaire (ALEQ/ALDeQ) + Intelligibility in Context Scale: https://www.ualberta.ca/en/linguistics/cheslcentre/questionnaires.html

Intelligibility in Context Scale: https://www.csu.edu.au/research/multilingual-speech/speech-assessments/ics

Step 2 — Sampling Both Languages UBC Cross-Linguistic Phonological Development Project (single-word probes in many languages): https://phonodevelopment.sites.olt.ubc.ca/

Frog, Where Are You: https://www.iifilologicas.unam.mx/uploads/IL-2-Lecturas/050-Frog_Story_all_as_pdf_image_300.pdf

Step 3 — Narrow IPA Transcription ASHA Spanish Phonemic Inventory: https://www.asha.org/siteassets/uploadedfiles/spanish-phonemic-inventory.pdf

Step 4 — Parent Baseline Recording Speech Accent Archive (cross-dialect reference recordings): https://accent.gmu.edu/

Step 5 — Independent Then Relational Analysis Phon software (open-source phonological analysis): https://www.phon.ca/

Step 6 — Rule Out Transfer & Dialect Bilinguistics Spanish-English Articulation Norms Chart: https://bilinguistics.com/articulation-norms-for-spanish-and-english/

Step 7 — Diagnose Only If Errors Appear in BOTH Languages Goldstein & Fabiano (2007) ASHA Leader: https://leader.pubs.asha.org/doi/10.1044/leader.FTR2.12022007.6

Step 8 — Treat with Complex Targets UBC Fun-ology Activities: https://phonodevelopment.sites.olt.ubc.ca/activities-2/activities/

Reference: McLeod, S., Verdon, S., & International Expert Panel on Multilingual Children's Speech (2017). Tutorial: Speech assessment for multilingual children who do not speak the same language(s) as the speech-language pathologist. American Journal of Speech-Language Pathology, 26(3), 691–708.

Ready to Optimize Change with Complex Targets?

Join the SIS (Speech It Smarter) Membership to learn how to select, sequence, and track complex treatment targets — including three-element /s/ clusters, /fr/ and /fl/ clusters.

Join the SIS Membership: https://www.kellyvess.com/sis