Language Proficiency and Dominance Considerations When Working With Spanish-English Bilingual Adults

Purpose As the Hispanic population continues to increase within the United States, there is a pressing need to incorporate rigorous and efficient clinical assessments of language dominance and proficiency when working with Spanish-English bilingual patients. The purpose of this study was to begin addressing this need by evaluating the association between language dominance and language proficiency. Method The association between scores for the English Versant Test (Pearson Education, 2010), an automated assessment of spoken language proficiency, and dominance and proficiency scores obtained using the Bilingual Language Profile, a self-report questionnaire was evaluated. Results The results indicated that half of the variance in the English Versant Test was explained by the response to a single question included in the Bilingual Language Profile. Conclusion These data support the inclusion of asking patients to not only indicate how many languages they speak but, for those patients that speak more than 1 language, to also ask how well they understand each of the languages.