This article describes oral language and early literacy skills in Spanish and English for a sample of 319 bilingual children in Massachusetts and Maryland (ECS) and a comparison group of 144 monolingual Spanish-speaking children in Puerto Rico (PRC). Children were assessed as they entered and exited pre-kindergarten programs. Data collection included four subtests of the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery and a researcher-developed phonological awareness task. Results show that, on average, children in the ECS sample performed below average in both English and Spanish when compared to monolingual norms and, despite some early literacy and oral language gains during their pre-kindergarten year, continue to lag behind monolingual children of the same age. Children in the ECS sample performed better in the early literacy tasks than in the oral language tasks in both English and Spanish. On average, the PRC sample scored significantly better than the ECS sample in Spanish oral language skills, but lower in phonological awareness skills. Educational implications and directions for future research are discussed.

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This study examined predictions from preschool parenting measures to middle childhood cognitive and socioemotional child outcomes to explore whether parenting assessment methodologies that require more time, training, and expense yield better predictions of child outcomes than less intensive methodologies. Mother-child dyads (N = 278) in low-income African American families were assessed when the child was in preschool, using maternal report, the Home Observation for Measurement of the Environment-Short Form (P. Baker & F. Mott, 1989; R. Bradley & B. Caldwell, 1984), and structured observational measures of parenting. Child outcomes reported by children, mothers, teachers, and direct assessment were collected 4 years later. All parenting methodologies showed some predictive value; however, observational parenting measures showed the strongest and most consistent predictions of child outcomes.

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Early diagnosis of selective mutism (SM) is an important concern. SM prevalence is higher than initially thought and at least three times higher in immigrant language minority children. Although the DSM-IV precludes diagnosing SM in immigrant children with limited language proficiency (as children acquiring a second language may normally undergo a "silent period"), specific diagnostic boundaries are not clear. The specific focus of this article is, therefore, the exact circumstances in which a language minority child should be diagnosed with SM.