With over thirty years of experience as a bilingual speech-language pathologist, observing, assessing, and teaching children with speech and language delays I have come to the following conclusions:

• • There is a troubling lag in pre-academic skills in the fastest growing and yet most educationally challenged group, Hispanic children
• • A solid language foundation is the essential skill upon which success in all academic areas is based
• • Many Hispanic children entering our schools do not have access to the type of early stimulation that will allow them to develop adequate language, cognitive, and social skills
• • Children are pre wired for language
• • Multisensory learning experiences create the pathways for our brain to store and remember information
• • Music, movement, and American Sign Language build connections, and when used repeatedly become the foundation for brain organization and function throughout a child's life
• • Research indicates that stimulation in the first years of life is critical for linguistic and cognitive development
• • 80% of language is learned by the age of 3
• • Parental support and reinforcement are key to the child's success
• • Young dual language learners are not only faced with the challenge of developing language and literacy skills in their native language but also need to transfer these skills to a second language
• • Strong language skills facilitate the acquisition of English
• • It is essential to design "parallel interventions" in Spanish and English that specifically include oral language and emergent literacy skills