SRCLD Presentation Details
  Title  
       
    Are Spanish-English bilingual parents able to reliably rate their child’s English language skills?  
Author(s)
Kimberly Crespo - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Milijana Buac - University of Wisconsin-Madison
Margarita Kaunshanskaya - University of Wisconsin-Madison

SRCLD Info
SRCLD Year: 2019
Presentation Type: Poster Presentation
Poster Number: PS3S09
Presentation Time: (na)
Categories
Abstract
Speech-Language Pathologists often rely on parental reports as the first step in an evaluation process. Parental report of language skills may be especially important to the assessment process in cases where standardized assessment tools are unavailable. But how reliable are parent reports, especially when parents must assess their children’s abilities in a language that is not the parents’ native language? In the present study, we examined the relationship between parental ratings of their children’s English speaking and understanding abilities and standardized assessment scores in a group of Spanish-English school-aged bilingual children. Results demonstrate that parent ratings were associated with children’s standardized language skills. For children with lower language abilities, bilingual parents were accurate at estimating their child’s English expressive skills but more likely to overestimate their English receptive language ability. These results suggest that bilingual parents are reliable reporters of their children’s receptive and expressive language skills in English. However, for children with lower language abilities, parent reports of receptive language should be interpreted cautiously and would need to be supplemented by other measures. Funding: This research was supported by NIH grants R03 DC010465 and R01 DC011750 to Margarita ?Kaushanskaya.