Bilingualism + biliteracy
How Spanish–English children build vocabulary, language, and literacy across home, school, and clinical settings.
Welcome to our BEAR Lab
Bilingualism is a strength.
We work with children, families, professionals, educators, researchers, students, and community partners to support Spanish–English bilingualism, biliteracy, and biculturalism.
Our research brings together technology and AI, assessment and intervention, family and professional learning, and equitable access.
Jean Franco Rivera Pérez, PhD, CCC-SLPDr. Rivera Pérez · BEAR Lab director
Together, we are the BEAR Lab.
StudentsFamilies + caregiversClinicians + professionalsEducators + researchersSchool + community partners
Research shaped by community
With people.
For real life.
The BEAR Lab is a community, not just a place.
Students, families, professionals, educators, researchers, and school and community partners help shape the questions we ask and the work we build. We want research to be understandable, usable, and responsive to the people it is meant to serve.
What we study
Connected questions.
One shared purpose.
We study how research, technology, and partnership can support Spanish–English emergent bilingual children and the people around them.
Technology, AI + speech tools
How digital tools can widen access to bilingual learning while keeping people and relationships at the center.
Assessment + intervention
Culturally and linguistically responsive approaches for bilingual children with and without language disorders.
Family + professional learning
Practical training and resources for the adults who support children every day.
Equity + transformative access
How training programs and professional systems can reduce bias and create more responsive services.
Featured project
CABVI
Supporting the way bilingual children communicate everyday.
CABVI uses technology to bring Spanish and English vocabulary support into early learning, including settings where the clinician does not speak Spanish.
Visit CABVI.studyResearch in action
More than finished papers.
Follow the questions, decisions, people, and ideas that make research happen.
- 01
Meet our people.
- 02
See research taking shape.
- 03
Share questions that matter.
- 04
Find ideas you can use.
Meet the director
Dr. Rivera Pérez
Jean Franco Rivera Pérez, PhD, CCC-SLP (he/él)
Dr. Rivera Pérez works alongside the BEAR Lab community to develop and study culturally and linguistically responsive approaches for Spanish–English children and their families.
His work includes technology and AI, bilingual intervention, biliteracy, equitable assessment, professional learning, and transformative access in speech-language and hearing sciences.
Currently an Associate Professor at Texas Christian University. His research has received support from the National Institutes of Health.
People and partnerships
Different roles. Shared work.
The BEAR Lab grows through people who bring research, practice, family, student, school, and community perspectives.
Dr. Jean-Franco Rivera-Pérez
Works alongside the BEAR Lab community as the lab director and a bilingual speech-language pathologist and researcher.
Practicing SLP collaborators
Bring questions and insight from the everyday work of supporting bilingual children and families.
Parent and caregiver partners
Help keep family priorities, lived experience, and useful outcomes at the center of the work.
PhD students
Develop research questions, methods, and scholarship connected to bilingual language and access.
Master’s students
Connect research learning with clinical practice, schools, and community priorities.
Undergraduate volunteers
Contribute to lab projects while building early experience with community-engaged research.
School and community collaborators
Shape practical partnerships that connect research with real learning environments.
Publications
Read the work behind the ideas.
Explore peer-reviewed research on bilingual vocabulary, intervention, family learning, technology, second-language acquisition, and equity in the professions.
Connect with the BEAR Lab
There is a place for you in this work.
Families, professionals, educators, researchers, students, and community partners: follow the work, share a question, or explore a collaboration.