BESA at-a-glance

What is it?

An assessment to identify phonological and/or language impairment in bilingual and ELL children, and to differentiate between delays in English language acquisition and true language disorders.

Who is it for?

BESA was developed for bilingual children in the United States. Latino children in the U.S. who speak Spanish, English, or both are eligible for assessment.

At-A-Glance

What are the components of the assessment?

3 subtests (given in both English and Spanish), 2 parent and teacher questionnaires (BIOS and ITALK), and one pragmatic activity.

How are the subtest scores reported?

Subtest raw scores are reported as scaled scores, standard scores, percentile ranks, and age equivalents.

What age range does it cover?

4;0 – 6;11 years

Who implements it?

Speech-language pathologists. (If the SLP isn’t a bilingual English-Spanish speaker, an English-speaking SLP should give the English portions, and a trained bilingual person could give the Spanish portions under supervision of the SLP.)

Is BESA norm-referenced?

Yes. Test norms were derived using data from over 600 bilingual children from across the country.

How long does it take?

1–2 hours to administer all components of assessment.

Is it valid and reliable?

Yes. BESA has high internal consistency, test-retest reliability, interrater reliability, and sensitivity and specificity. Chapter 5 of the BESA manual includes in-depth information on validity and reliability.

Is training required?

No formal training is required, but administrators should familiarize themselves with the test procedures, possible child responses, and scoring of the individual test items, as described in the manual.

Bilingual English-Spanish Assessment

Introductory Price: $550.00
Stock #: 52797
By Elizabeth D. Peña, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Vera F. Gutiérrez-Clellen, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, Aquiles Iglesias, Ph.D., Brian A. Goldstein, Ph.D., CCC-SLP, & Lisa M. Bedore, Ph.D., CCC-SLP
Includes 1 BESA Test Manual, 1 BESA Stimulus Book, 20 BESA Protocol English Forms, 20 BESA Protocol Spanish Forms, 20 BIOS Forms, & 20 ITALK Forms.