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Have you identified a student with a language need or learning disability?

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Review the student's records, home language surveys, and standardize test scores

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Identifying Special Education Needs in English Language Learners | Continental Educational Publisher

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In this blog, we’ll discuss how teachers can improve upon identifying special education needs in English language learners.

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Are there any inconsistencies with the students academic performance in classes?

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Document your observations in class, gather assignments and speak with other teachers about their shared student.

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Page 5: Stage 2: Information Gathering

Next in the pre-referral process is the information gathering stage. Information gathering can be accomplished in a number of ways and carried out by a variety of different personnel. For example, in some cases, the referring teacher might collect the information. In others, the school counselor or a member of the pre-referral team might assist in gathering information to present to the rest of the group. Regardless of who collects it, it is important to collect information about:

Instructional methods, strategies, and materials that have been previously tried or used

The student's skill level

The student's background knowledge and experiences

School and home expectations for behavior and academic performance

Classroom behavior management techniques

Informal assessments are an especially important tool for gathering these types of information. Such assessments can help the pre-referral team to understand the nature, extent, and severity of the student's difficulties. For example, if a student is having difficulty with math, the teacher can assess or estimate his or her ability level in various skills (e.g., math facts, computation, word problems). Besides informal assessments, teachers can use a variety of sources to collect information:

Family members

Other classroom teachers

Student portfolios or work samples

Classroom observations

Cumulative school records

Attendance records

Formal assessments

Pre-referral at Macy Middle School

Stage 2: Information Gathering

Notes from phone calls between Mrs. Marks and Jeremy's mom reveal that there has been concern at home about Jeremy's ability to pay attention and get his homework done. Mrs. Marks's notes from her conversations with Jeremy's other teachers indicate that they have seen similar warning signs in their classes-a substantial amount of work has never been turned in. In addition, the science teacher offers samples of Jeremy's incomplete homework assignments. Mrs. Marks has data from before and after the time that she moved Jeremy's seat closer to the front of the room and from when she began reminding her class to turn their homework in every day. In fact, the data show that Jeremy has turned in even less work after these changes. The lone exception was band class, where he seems really to excel.

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IRIS | Page 5: Stage 2: Information Gathering

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Next in the pre-referral process is the information gathering stage. Information gathering can be accomplished in a number of ways and carried out by a variety of different personnel. For example, in some cases, the referring teacher might collect the information.

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If there are no other inconsistencies in performance, no other steps are needed.

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Have you talked to a parent/guardian about your concerns?

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How to communicate with parents of special education students: 5 tips from an IEP veteran | Exceptional Lives

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Teachers know that parent communication matters. Here are our 5 tips for how to communicate with parents of your special education students.

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Speak to a parent or guardian before next step.

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Speak with the resource teacher, special education teachers, pupil personnel worker, or nurse about your data.

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Start collecting data on your student with the use of summative and formative test scores, behavior charts, assignments. Then go to the speak to someone bubble.

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With your schools RTI team complete the steps below.

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Page 2: Distinguishing Between Disability and Language Difference

Delays in social and communication development might occur when children are learning two or more languages. Because such delays can be red flags for further developmental problems in the areas of social-emotional development and cognition, early childhood educators must determine their cause: language difference or disability. Teachers attempting to distinguish between a disability and a language difference should begin by addressing a few key questions:
social-emotional development
Developmental process through which young children learn to manage their personal experiences, emotional states, and relationships with both peers and authority figures.

Compared to English, for how long has the child been speaking and exposed to their home language? Keep in mind that it is typical for a child learning a second language to have a silent period.

Are the difficulties present in both the child's home language and the new language?

Are the concerns evident in multiple settings (e.g., home, childcare)?

Have developmentally appropriate strategies been delivered systematically?

Have these strategies produced any significant differences in the child's learning and development?

As they consider the answers to these questions, it is particularly important for teachers to keep in mind that a child's developmental delay or disability will be observable in both languages and across multiple settings. Additionally, developmentally appropriate strategies will likely produce noticeable gains for typically developing DLLs but not necessarily for those with disabilities. A bilingual speech/language pathologist (SLP) can also assist teachers and parents in distinguishing delays in children's skills that may be caused by disability from what is in fact the typical language development for bilingual children and the second language acquisition process. If an instructor's answers to the questions outlined above indicate that a language difference is not the cause of the delays, screening and possible evaluation for a disability is warranted.

Listen as Irlanda Jimenez further discusses some considerations for determining whether a child has a developmental delay or a language difference (time: 1:34).

Irlanda Jimenez
Multicultural Coordinator, Bilingual/ESL Teacher
Urbana Early Childhood Schools

Transcript: Irlanda Jimenez

Sometimes there is that concern about some type of developmental delay, whether it be language, whether it be cognitive, and so forth, trying to figure out is it developmental delay or is it learning English as a second language? One of the things I ask parents is, "Do you see this also in the native language?" For example, if I have a parent that says, "My child is only using one- or two-words sentences," and let's say the child's home language is Arabic. So I will say, "Okay, is that example in English?" And if they say, "Oh, yes. it is." "Okay, so tell me in Arabic, what does their language look like?" "Oh, no, in Arabic they're saying sentences. They're answering questions." So I think that's definitely one of the big things, is making sure that they're seeing it in the home language as well.

Another thing is comparing the two languages and make sure that the kids aren't using first language to sort of transfer to second language, if that makes sense. So, for example, in Spanish we might say "carro rojo" which is noun-adjective, when in English it's "red car." So if you have a child that is using that in trying to speak in English and then you may be like, oh, my gosh, they're totally off. But once you get a chance to study the language you can see they're transferring skills from one to the other inappropriately.

For Your Information

Grammatical and structural differences among languages are frequently the source of apparent language errors among DLLs. For example, in Tagalog there are no gender specific pronouns (i.e., he, she, him, her). It is common for Tagalog speakers to misuse these pronouns when speaking in English. In many cases, these errors can be corrected through extended exposure to English and specific instruction and should not be automatically interpreted as signs of a disability.

Screening and Evaluation

The first step in determining whether a child has a developmental delay or disability is to collect more information through processes such as:

Screening is a simple process to assess a child's health or to determine whether the child is meeting developmental milestones. For example, pediatricians conduct developmental screenings during well-baby checkups to diagnose vision or hearing concerns or to identify children who are not meeting developmental milestones. In addition, some screenings are conducted by early childhood educators or other professionals such as a vision specialist or a speech/language pathologists.

Evaluation is a more formal process involving multiple assessments to collect more in-depth information on specific developmental areas and skills. Evaluations are conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals (e.g., early intervention specialist, speech/language pathologists, physical therapists).

For Your Information

All states have a system to identify young children with developmental delays or disabilities, referred to as child find. Through this system, anyone (e.g., teacher, parent) can refer a child who they suspect of having a disability.

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (2004) includes a mandate for Child Find. This mandate requires schools to locate, evaluate, and identify all children with disabilities from birth to age 21, and who might require special education services. This includes children who are not yet attending schools, students in public or private schools, migrant children, homeless children, children who are highly mobile, and children who are in state custody.

The results of this evaluation help the multidisciplinary team determine whether the child qualifies for special education services which, for young children from birth to age three, are known as early intervention services. For preschoolers, these services are provided through preschool or early childhood special education and related services. The determination of eligibility for early childhood special education services must not rest on one test score but rather a combination of results based on but not limited to, standardized and performance-based measures, multiple observations of the child across settings and routines, and input from family members, professionals, and other adults who interact routinely with the child. This process applies to any young child; however, for DLLs, the results of the evaluation must clearly demonstrate a disability or delay in all of the child's languages.
multi-disciplinary team
A team of teachers, educational professionals (e.g., related services personnel, school psychologist), administrators, specialists, and parents or guardians who assess the individual needs of students to determine eligibility for special education and develop individualized education programs (IEP) for students ages 3 through 21, or individualized family service plans (IFSP) for children birth to age 3; these teams are often referred to as or IEP or IFSP teams.

Listen as Robert Stechuk highlights three sources of data that can inform the assessment process for young DLLs (time: 3:39).

Transcript: Robert Stechuk, PhD

Assessment is a key component of quality services. For programs who are serving young dual language learners, if it's assessing children for instructional purposes, trying to figure out how and what to teach, or if it's assessment to identify and establish the presence of a disability, there are essentially three main sources of data to look at. Number one is data from families. If the program has the capacity to speak with families in their home language or get a translator, using information from families-whether it's a combination of checklists, or parent narratives, or parent reports, or asking families to talk about their child's development-families can be a rich source of data for informing programs about the nature and course of children's development across all developmental domains and across both of their languages.

The second data source would be observations of child in the classroom. The child may not speak any English. The child may grow up speaking Arabic or Vietnamese or Korean. They may have had no prior experience with English. The value of observations is that, because the focus is on the child's behaviors, that's really where we want the data to come from. The assessment strategy would be to welcome the child into the classroom, to communicate using a variety of communication methods that further invite the child to look around the classroom, and to become engaged in one or more activities. Offering children choices is a natural way of getting the children engaged in activities that they're interested in. So the child may come into the classroom having no prior experience with English, but the teacher using gestures and smiles and by demonstrating can say, "Here's the sand table. Would you like to play here? Here's the art area. Would you like to paint at the easel?" And then once children are engaged in the activity then the program staff can begin observing the child and recording examples of what does the child know and able to do. That data is also a very rich source for the assessment process.

The third area of data is the use of standardized tests. And that becomes tricky because, if the test was not developed using children from the child's language background, that would tend to negate the validity of the standardized test results. Right now there are a number of standardized tests in English that have been shown to be reliable. There are a number of-not as many-instruments in Spanish that have been developed for the birth-to-five period. But for children coming from other language backgrounds, there are no standardized instruments that I know of. For children whose language background is not English or Spanish, my recommendation would be to utilize as much of the first two data sources as possible.

To learn more about screening or evaluating young DLLs to determine whether a disability or a language difference exists, we encourage you to listen to the following IRIS Interview:

DEC Recommended Practices

The Division for Early Childhood (DEC) of the Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) provides guidance on recommended practices for young children with or at-risk for disabilities. The assessment strategies identified in the DEC Recommended Practices (DEC-RP) apply to all young children, including DLLs. Additionally, a number of strategies apply specifically to young DLLs. In the table below, the 11 DEC Recommended Practices on Assessment are matched to five strategies designed to address issues common to DLLs. An example from Mrs. Raymond's classroom is provided to illustrate how each strategy and the corresponding DEC Recommended Practices on Assessment might be implemented.

Note: According to DEC, "In early intervention and early childhood special education, assessment is conducted for the purposes of screening, determining eligibility for services, individualized planning, monitoring child progress, and measuring child outcomes." (DEC Recommended Practices, 2014)

Listen as Rosa Milagros Santos talks about how the DEC Recommended Practices can support young children's development, including young DLL children with disabilities (time: 1:36).

Rosa Milagros Santos, PhD
Professor, Special Education
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Transcript: Rosa Milagros Santos, PhD

DEC, the Division for Early Childhood of the Council of Exceptional Children, have developed a set of recommendations of different practices that they believe are supportive of young children's development. Over the years, these practices have been used in many programs and classrooms and homes. The idea behind them is that these practices could produce strong positive outcomes for young children and their families. We've refined these recommended practices through the years to make sure that there is indeed a strong evidence-based support for these specific practices. The 2014 version of these recommended practices give us the most up-to-date, high-leverage practices, meaning that these are easy to implement but produce immediate positive outcomes for young children and their families.

In the 2014 iteration of the DEC recommended practices, there are certain practices specific to dual language learners that we found from the literature that have been effective when implemented with young children with disabilities. But it doesn't mean that all the other practices are not effective for young children who are dual language learners. If you look at some of those practices, they're broad enough that they could be used and implemented with young children. When you look at family practices, for example, or interaction or instruction, those are good practices that should be implemented across a range of young children without disabilities.

When working with DLLs, especially those with disabilities, it is important for teachers to understand some unique issues around:

Maintaining the home language

Collaborating with families

Using effective instructional strategies

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IRIS | Page 2: Distinguishing Between Disability and Language Difference

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Delays in social and communication development might occur when children are learning two or more languages. Because such delays can be red flags for further developmental problems in the areas of social-emotional development and cognition, early childhood educators must determine their cause: language difference or disability.

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Screenings; has the child been screened by a professional for milestones met, vision concerns, or hearing concerns? Student can be screened by early childhood educators or other professionals such as a vision specialist or a speech/language pathologists.

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Contact the appropriate pediatrician or other qualified professionals to schedule an appointment for a screening.

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Collect more in-depth information on specific developmental areas and skills. Refer to the schools PST/RTI team to have this screening conducted by a multi-disciplinary team of qualified professionals such as the intervention specialist, speech/language pathologists, physical therapists. Performance may need to also be evaluated in student's native language as necessary. Student may require a 504 plan or special education services based on eligibility.

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Implement the 504 plan or IEP accordingly.