Dallas, TX – Developmental language disorders affect roughly 7% of U.S. children, making it hard for them to understand or produce spoken and written language. The challenge is even greater for children from bilingual homes.

AI‑assisted bilingual instruction

Researchers at Texas Christian University’s Davies School of Communications Sciences and Disorders have created a program called Computer‑Assisted Bilingual Vocabulary Instruction (CABVI). The tool uses an AI‑powered character that interacts with children in Spanish and English, providing live written English translations when a child speaks Spanish. This helps bridge the gap between clinicians and families who speak different languages.

Addressing a shortage of multilingual clinicians

Only about 9% of speech‑language pathologists in the United States are multilingual, according to a 2025 survey by the American Speech‑Language‑Hearing Association. As a result, many bilingual children receive therapy solely in English, limiting their ability to communicate with family members. “If a child only receives interventions in English, they will be able to communicate with their teacher or certain members of their community, but not with their friends or their mom,” said associate professor Jean Rivera Pérez.

Early results show promise

In a preliminary study of 21 Spanish‑speaking preschoolers, CABVI participants showed gains in both Spanish and English vocabulary that persisted for six months. The researchers plan to begin a larger randomized clinical trial in schools next January.

Funding and future outlook

The project is funded by a five‑year grant from the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, totaling $2.72 million. Researchers hope the findings will give monolingual clinicians confidence when working with bilingual children and spare families the search for a “unicorn” speech‑language pathologist.

Original reporting: Texarkana Gazette — read the source article.