Growing up I lived in New York, the neighborhood I grew up in was very diverse. A few years ago I moved to Colorado and that diversity was not extreme. Within the last school year, it has become evident that school districts, who have not been impacted heavily by immigrants, are not prepared to handle diversity increasing in their schools. My research is dedicated towards changing the way we identify English Language Learners for special education as to not misidentify them. Although Colorado is just recently dealing with this struggle, areas that are more diverse have most likely struggled with identifying English Language Learners. Although there is no perfect model to guide us, other district’s experiences are great resources.
This blog post is a review of the journal article "Overrepresentation: An Overview of the Issues Surrounding the Identification of English Language Learners with Learning Disabilities
" as published by International Journal of Special Education, in 2016, Vol. 31, No. 2, pg. 1-12.
The article starts off expressing the impact immigration has had in our school systems. According to Sanatullova-Allison,English Language Learners (ELLs) are becoming the fastest growing section of the K-12 student population. The article continues to say that schools across the united states are continuously developing educational services to support this specific group of students (pg. 3).
Part of the article expresses that those who assess students for a learning disability should know and understand the similarities between a Learning Disability and Language Acquisition. Students with a learning disability usually have challenges following directions. It is up to evaluators to determine if the directions were not understood due to language barriers. It is also harder to remember directions in a second language. Students with a learning disability have difficulty with phonological awareness. Evaluators need to discuss with ELD teachers sounds in the English language that are not in the student’s primary language that may make it challenging to learn new sounds in the English Language. The article continues to discuss other behaviors (poor sound-symbol correspondence, memorizing sight words, retelling stories in sequence, figurative language, poor auditory memory, and difficulty concentrating) that also are common for English Language Learners to deal with (page 6). It is up to the evaluator to determine if these behaviors are impacted because of being an English Language Learner, or having a disability. I think it is important to have understanding that there are multiple factors that can impact a student’s behavior.
The article also discusses why the misidentification of English Language Learners is important. Learning a second language is not a disability, and is actually an advantage for students. When English Language Learners are wrongfully placed into special education, they receive services that do not support their academic growth. English Language Learners need ELD strategies in their general education classroom to support their language development (pg. 8).
It was expressed by the article that creating a framework to evaluate and monitor procedures used to assess students for special education (pg. 8). If a protocol is not written down, it is unlikely for it to be utilized and to developed. The article recommends that the assessor evaluates students with the lens that the student’s academic challenges are primarily external factors (pg. 9). The article continues to ask assessors to looks through that lens until data proves otherwise. Doing this allows you to rule out all other factors and to understand the complexity that impacts their learning and performance (pg 8).
With all of the data I have gathered, it is clear to see that external factors can cause students to perform low academically, but it does not mean a student has a disability. Having a concrete written list of external factors that need to be addressed primarily, help assessors to know what factors could potentially be preventing a student from learning at the same rate as their peers.
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