Children with bilingual typical language development (BITLD) and children with specific language impairment (SLI) propose similarities in their linguistic performance (e.g., vocabulary and verb inflections). These observed similarities (Paradis 2010) have led to an influx of studies examining the sources of these similarities and indicating areas of dissimilarity aiming to separate the effects of SLI and bilingualism in bilingual children with SLI (BISLI). The intriguing link, examined in the Pierce et al. (2017) keynote, between early language experience and the evolution of phonological working memory (PWM) seamlessly ties into this debate. Bilinguals, and especially simultaneous bilinguals, it is asserted, meet with an enriched linguistic environment in early childhood that is expected to increase their PWM. By contrast, children with SLI are asserted to have a neurocognitive impairment that negatively impacts their PWM. This commentary examines, first, how both age of onset (AoO) of bilingual exposure and the neurocognitive impairment associated with SLI affect PWM and, second, how this impact might be linked to the observed resemblances as well as evident discrepancies that appear from studies comparing children with BITLD to children with SLI (monolingual and bilingual).