title: Utility of a Language Screening Measure for Predicting Risk for Language Impairment in Bilinguals.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  This study evaluated the accuracy of an experimental version of the Bilingual English Spanish Oral Screener (BESOS; Peña, Bedore, Iglesias, Gutiérrez-Clellen, & Goldstein, 2008) for predicting the long-term risk for language impairment (LI) for a matched group of preschool-aged Spanish-English bilingual children with and without LI.
  
  
  METHODS
  A total of 1,029 Spanish-English bilingual children completed the BESOS before entering kindergarten. A subset of 167 participants completed a follow-up language evaluation in 1st grade. Twenty-one of these children were identified as having LI and were matched to a group of 21 typically developing peers from the larger sample. A series of discriminant analyses were used to determine the combination of scores on the BESOS that most accurately predicted 2 years later which children presented with and without LI.
  
  
  RESULTS
  The linear combination of the semantics and morphosyntax scores in the best language resulted in predictive sensitivity of 95.2% and predictive specificity of 71.4%, with an overall accuracy of 81% for predicting risk for LI.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  A bilingual language screener administered before kindergarten can be useful for predicting risk for LI in bilingual children in 1st grade.
authors.forename: Mirza J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Lugo-Neris
authors.forename: Elizabeth D
authors.initials: ED
authors.lastname: Peña
authors.forename: Lisa M
authors.initials: LM
authors.lastname: Bedore
authors.forename: Ronald B
authors.initials: RB
authors.lastname: Gillam
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D002675:Child, Preschool; D005260:Female; D006630:Hispanic or Latino; D006801:Humans; D007805:Language Development Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000208:ethnology; D007807:Language Tests / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D008297:Male; D008403:Mass Screening; D019303:Multilingualism; D010700:Phonetics; D011594:Psychometrics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D012307:Risk Factors; D012660:Semantics; D014825:Vocabulary