ABSTRACT
Difficulties of assessing the language development of bilinguals are described and suggestions made as to how to overcome these problems, sometimes relying on those very characteristics previously considered deviant in order to measure development. The need to consider both languages is stressed along with recognition of the child's possible bi-cultural situation. This emphasis on the two languages is continued where assessment is related to remediation. In this chapter, interference is considered to be the simultaneous application of the patterns of two languages to the same item, e.g. the construction 'littleaf' (smallest) containing the English stem 'little' and Welsh superlative affix '-afi'. Regardless of the number of assessors involved, the main aims of assessment remain the same to demonstrate the need for remediation and provide guidelines for the planning of that remediation. One of the first steps in assessment is to eliminate those characteristics which are not problems in a 'clinical' sense.
