The Effects of English and Spanish Instructional Sequences on the Acquisition of Conditional Discriminations

Romo and team worked with three bilingual preschoolers with autism. Each child spoke Spanish at home and English at school.

The kids learned receptive labels for common objects. Some days the teacher said the word first in Spanish, then English. Other days the order flipped. The team counted trials to mastery.

One child learned fastest when Spanish came first. Two kids did best with a mixed order. No child did best with English-first only.

The children’s stated favorite language did not predict which sequence worked best.

Baez et al. (2026) show that bilingual AAC users often prefer Spanish. Romo’s findings say you still need to test the teaching order, not just ask the child.

Banerjee et al. (2022) proved bilingual FCT must be trained in both languages. Romo adds that even simple receptive labels need language-specific sequencing.

Bao et al. (2017) found expressive-first beats receptive-first for feature-function-class tasks. Romo flips the lens: when two languages are in play, the language order matters more than the expressive-receptive order.

If you run DTT with bilingual kids, don’t assume English-first is best. Spend one quick probe week rotating Spanish-first, English-first, and mixed. Track trials to mastery for each set. Pick the winner and move on. This small step can cut teaching time in half for some learners.