The author reviews literature on the acquisition of language in bilingual children, and discusses issues in the assessment of language impairment in this population. Cited among findings of bilingual research are that children can and do acquire more than one language during early childhood and the acquisition of two languages can be parallel, but need not be. It is pointed out that the child's surrounding environment affects such factors as the specific linguistic and metalinguistic information important for the development of each language and the specific social language use rules for each language. The speech therapist is seen to face a dilemma in testing the bilingual child--to use inappropriate instrumentation and norms which may lead to false positives or not to address the possible existence of language impairment in bilingual children which may result in severe disservice to children in legitimate need. (SB)