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

If you’re feeling like your therapy sessions are “working” but chugging along at a slow pace, this episode is going to hit a nerve in the best way.

Because here’s the truth that most of us weren’t trained to see clearly:

When a child has anxiety or ADHD, you are not just treating speech and language. You are working against a nervous system that is dysregulated, overloaded, and constantly scanning for what feels safe, predictable, and doable.

And if your therapy doesn’t account for that, it won’t stick. Not because the child can’t learn, but because the system isn’t ready to hold onto what you’re teaching.

In this episode, we break down what is actually happening underneath the surface with anxiety and ADHD, and why traditional, sit-and-work therapy models often fall apart with these learners. We walk through what to look for, what to shift immediately, and how to build sessions that regulate first so language, speech, and AAC can actually follow.

We’re talking about real, Monday-morning changes that increase engagement, reduce shutdown behaviors, and create the kind of momentum that leads to true generalization.

If you’ve ever thought, “They can do it with me, but nowhere else,” this episode is for you.

Because that gap is not a mystery. It’s a systems problem, and you can fix it.

And when you do, everything changes.

If you are ready for therapy that actually works for children with anxiety and ADHD, where movement, regulation, literacy, and communication are all working together instead of competing, then it’s time to step into a model that was built for exactly that.

Inside the SIS Membership, you get ready-to-use, literacy-based, movement-rich therapy activities designed to support regulation, attention, and engagement first, so that speech, language, and AAC gains can finally stick and generalize across settings.

No more piecing things together. No more guessing what will work. Just open, implement, and watch the shift.

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

Roll up your sleeves and meet me at the intervention drawing board.💚KellyVessSLP

Let’s say the quiet part out loud.

If a preschooler is lisping, and we choose to wait, we are not being cautious. We are building the wrong motor plan.

In this episode, I am pushing back on the idea that a frontal lisp is something to “monitor” until school age. Because while we are waiting, that child is producing "TH" for "S" hundreds of times a day, every day, wiring in a pattern that becomes significantly harder to change later.

This is not harmless. This is not neutral. And it is not something most children simply outgrow.

We are talking about what the research and clinical reality both tell us. The S sound is one of the most frequent sounds in the English language, which means errors with it are practiced at a massive scale. Add in what we already know about persistence into adulthood and the window of neuroplasticity in early childhood, and the argument for early intervention becomes very hard to ignore.

Then we get into the part that actually matters.

What do you do differently with a three- or four-year-old?

Because if your approach is telling a preschooler where to put their tongue, you are already losing. They do not have the motor control, the language, or the awareness to make that meaningful. So instead of fighting that, we work around it.

I am walking you through how to go in through the back door using incompatible strategies that make a frontal lisp almost impossible to produce. We are talking about why I do not waste time on isolated S, and how using clusters like SCR, SQU, STR, and SPL leverages assimilation to pull the tongue exactly where it needs to go without over-explaining or over-cueing.

This is where therapy shifts from chasing errors to building a system.

We also address the reality that some cases will take more work, especially when you are dealing with open bite or long-term habits like pacifier use, and what that means for your expectations as a clinician.

If you are ready to stop waiting, stop hoping, and start shaping accurate motor plans early, this episode will change how you approach frontal lisps on Monday morning.

And if you want this exact clinical thinking turned into therapy you can actually use without spending your nights planning, that is what we do inside the SIS Membership.

Inside SIS, you get ready-to-use, literacy-based, movement-driven activities that are built on these principles so you are not guessing what to do next. You are walking in with a plan that targets speech, language, AAC, and literacy all at once and is designed for carryover.

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

Because waiting does not make it easier. It makes it harder.

Wishing you a week of bold clinical decisions and real progress,💚Kelly