Expert Advice on a Culturally Responsive Approach to Bilingual Assessment – 4 Videos, 7 minutes

Traditional standardized tests often overlook the complex and dynamic language skills of bilingual children—particularly those who operate within diverse cultural and linguistic settings. Grounded in current research, the Functional Language Proficiency (FLiP) framework offers a new perspective, moving away from deficit-oriented models and redefining how bilingual learners are assessed in both clinical and school environments.

Hear from Dr. Genesis Arizmendi, CCC-SLP and faculty member at the University of Arizona, as she introduces practical, FLiP-based approaches designed to promote more equitable and accurate assessments for bilingual children. We invited her to SLP Impact to talk about her research and caught these four great clips from our initial interview. Watch these highlights and then click below to join us for the whole session and earn CEUs.

How can taking a broader view of language abilities capture all of the linguistic wealth that bilingual children exhibit in their communication?

Why are we moving away from terms like English-Language Learners to terms like Emergent Bilinguals and Dual Language Learners?

Describe the FLiP task and how language brokering is incorporated into it.

What are some of the linguistic features addressed in a functional-componential evaluation?

Want to hear the full story and earn CEUs?

Check out this course: FLiP the Script: Asset-Based Language Assessment for Bilingual Learners

Standardized assessments often fail to capture the rich, contextually grounded language abilities of bilingual children, especially those who navigate multiple linguistic and cultural worlds. Drawing from the latest research on evaluation, the Functional Language Proficiency (FLiP) framework reshapes how bilingual children are evaluated in clinical and educational contexts by challenging deficit-based approaches that dominate standardized testing.

Join Genesis Arizmendi, PhD, CCC-SLP from the University of Arizona as she shares how to apply FLiP-aligned strategies to improve equity and accuracy in evaluating bilingual children.