Effects of English versus heritage language on play in bilingually exposed children with autism spectrum disorder

Lim and team watched bilingual kids with autism play.

Adults gave 30-second bursts of play cues, comments, and praise.

Sometimes the adult spoke English. Sometimes the child’s heritage language.

The order flipped back and forth so the team could see which language helped play most.

Kids played more when adults used the heritage language.

One child also showed fewer problem behaviors in that condition.

Same toys, same adult, same room—only the language changed.

Lee et al. (2019) pooled 18 studies and saw the same small heritage-language edge.

Romo et al. (2025) repeated the idea with table-top drills. They found the best language order differed by kid, but Spanish-first often beat English-first.

Neely et al. (2020) pushed the check further. They showed English-only FCT can crash at home for Spanish-speaking families.

Clay et al. (2020) looked at praise alone and saw most kids did not care which language they heard. That seems opposite, but Clay only tested reinforcer value, not instruction. When you teach, heritage language wins. When you simply deliver praise, either language works.

If you run play-based therapy with bilingual children, start with the heritage language. You may see more play and less problem behavior without changing anything else. When parents worry that two languages will confuse their child, show them this line of studies—bilingualism is not the problem; English-only teaching might be.