Clinical Considerations in the Psychological Assessment of Bilingual Young Children

As the United States population continues to grow in cultural and linguistic diversity, many psychologists are left with important questions related to accurate and valid assessment practices. Although many of these questions are beginning to be addressed through the publication of newly normed measures and best-practice guidelines, few of these publications have focused on assessment with very young children. Accurate assessment in early childhood is vital to the identification of early intervention and mental health needs. Given the scarcity of appropriately normed psychological and developmental measures, along with limited published guidelines available for making adaptations to existing resources, young children being raised in non-English-speaking homes are at risk for misdiagnosis. The authors addressed this concern by providing clinical considerations for assessment with young children (ages 0-5) and families who speak languages other than English. These considerations have been informed by an interdisciplinary infant mental health perspective, drawing largely from the fields of psychology and speech-language pathology. The authors illustrated each key point throughout the various phases of assessment with a clinical case vignette, including diagnostic classification and cultural formulation using the newly revised Diagnostic Classification of Mental Health and Developmental Disorders of Infancy and Early Childhood (ZERO TO THREE, 2017a).