Understanding the Linguistic Needs of Diverse Individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder: Some Comments on the Research Literature and Suggestions for Clinicians.

Lim et al. (2018) wrote a short article for clinicians. They read every paper they could find on bilingual kids with autism. Then they told us what the pile of studies really says.

They did not run a new experiment. They simply looked at past work and spelled out what it means for day-to-day practice.

The old advice "drop one language" has no science behind it. Kids with autism can learn two languages without hurting their English.

Clinicians should test each child in both languages and plan goals that fit that child, not the language they hear at school.

Cappadocia et al. (2012) and Griffith et al. (2012) got the same result years earlier: bilingual preschoolers with autism kept pace with monolingual peers on every language score.

Lim et al. (2018) went further. They showed that when you give play instructions in the child’s heritage language, play skills jump up and problem behavior drops.

Banerjee et al. (2022) proved you must teach mands in both languages. Single-language FCT failed; bilingual FCT plus repair steps worked.

Kim et al. (2024) looked at the whole US system and found schools and clinics still push English-only even though all these studies say bilingual support is safe and often better.

Stop telling families to speak only English. Check both languages in your assessment and write goals that use the words the family really says at home. If you run FCT or play sessions, switch to the heritage language when you see the child light up. You will get more language, less problem behavior, and parents who trust you.