A study investigated a model that takes into account the influence of conceptual, cultural, and linguistic variables in formation of verbal and nonverbal concepts in bilingual children. This triple-interaction model states that concepts are represented in three ways: (1) nonverbally as abstract categories; (2) symbolically by means of sociocultural conventions; and (3) linguistically by structures and markers. Subjects, 30 Spanish/English bilingual children aged 6-7 years who were attending kindergarten and first grade classrooms in central Texas, performed five verbal and nonverbal classification tasks to measure the three ways of representing concepts. Three verbal classification tasks included labeling, defining, and verbal justification for sorting. Two nonverbal tasks were sorting and category clues. The tasks were administered in both English and Spanish. Each task was scored twice to give credit for both general categorization criteria and gender classification or assignment. It was hypothesized that in a bilingual child the abstract categories constituting nonverbal representations were common to both languages or unique to each, depending on the commonness or uniqueness of the representations of symbolic meanings of linguistic conventions made by the sociocultural community. Results indicate the children constructed one representational system common to English and Spanish and another, unique to Spanish, for certain object categories. Nonverbal classification was performed better than verbal classification in both languages. (MSE)