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Signs of Difficulties

Consistent difficulty naming familiar and everyday objects;

Using vague words like thing;

Struggling to come up with the right word;

Trouble following or remembering multistep directions;

Difficulty reciting things in the right order (like the alphabet or nursery rhymes); and

Mixing up the sounds in multisyllabic words (“mazagine” instead of “magazine” or “cimmanom” instead of “cinnamon”).

Some students don’t have trouble with language-based tasks, but struggle with math-based skills, like numeracy. Look for these common, noticeable signs in math:

Trouble counting out loud (skipping over numbers or reciting them out of order);

Trouble recognizing, creating, or replicating patterns;

Trouble connecting number symbols to number words, such as knowing that the numeral 5 goes with the word five;

Difficulty generalizing a number to more than one group of objects, such as understanding that six can be six crayons, six books, or six children; and

Difficulty understanding one-to-one correspondence.

(Morin, 2021)

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Max was 5 when he was diagnosed with a language-based learning disability. But his mother says the signs were visible earlier. She says Max had a hard time learning how to talk.

At 5, Max was identified much earlier than most students. According to a report by the National Center for Learning Disabilities, 38 percent of public-school students who receive special education services do so under the category of specific learning disability (SLD). But just a little over 6 percent of those students have the SLD identification by age 6; that increases to 40 percent by age 10.

Learning disabilities are neurologically based. The brain structure and function of students who have learning disabilities differ from those of peers who don't have the same challenges. One study found that those structural differences exist even before children begin to read.

So why is it that so few students who show early signs-like Max-are identified as having learning disabilities?

Recognizing Struggling Learners

Most preschool teachers know that some students take more time to develop and learn skills. However, while early signs of learning disabilities include delays in developmental milestones, teachers may be hesitant to jump to conclusions, thinking they need to give students adequate time to improve their skills.

Being in remote learning environments can rightfully reinforce this cautious instinct: When all students are struggling to navigate modes of learning that aren't intuitive to preschoolers, it's much harder to discern who is finding the act of learning challenging from those for whom learning itself is a challenge.

It's also true that some learning challenges are much more noticeable than others. Brittney Newcomer, a nationally certified school psychologist and the associate director of learning experiences at Understood, a nonprofit organization centered on helping those with learning and thinking differences-where I also work-told me that preschool teachers are more likely to notice speech issues because delays in language development or difficulty pronouncing words are often the most prominent challenges in young children.

"Because academic skills are just emerging in preschool, it is more difficult to identify patterns with specific academic areas, such as reading and math," Newcomer said.

This may account for why many students who receive special education support in preschool are identified as having a speech-language impairment. But Newcomer notes there is an overlap with language delays and learning disabilities.

"Difficulties with reading can be related to language deficits. Teachers should pay close attention to language-based tasks. For example, if students are showing difficulty grasping the concept of rhyming, this could demonstrate challenges with the phonological processing that is related to dyslexia," Newcomer said.

Identifying the Signs

Not all students have difficulty with the same skills, and not all students who have difficulties have learning disabilities. Newcomer suggests that teachers pay attention to clusters of signs, such as when a student has a heightened difficulty in learning numbers, days, colors, the alphabet, and/or shapes.

Pay attention to additional early signs of language-based learning disabilities, including:

Consistent difficulty naming familiar and everyday objects;

Using vague words like thing;

Struggling to come up with the right word;

Trouble following or remembering multistep directions;

Difficulty reciting things in the right order (like the alphabet or nursery rhymes); and

Mixing up the sounds in multisyllabic words ("mazagine" instead of "magazine" or "cimmanom" instead of "cinnamon").

Some students don't have trouble with language-based tasks, but struggle with math-based skills, like numeracy. Look for these common, noticeable signs in math:

Trouble counting out loud (skipping over numbers or reciting them out of order);

Trouble recognizing, creating, or replicating patterns;

Trouble connecting number symbols to number words, such as knowing that the numeral 5 goes with the word five;

Difficulty generalizing a number to more than one group of objects, such as understanding that six can be six crayons, six books, or six children; and

Difficulty understanding one-to-one correspondence.

Supporting Struggling Learners

Teachers aren't (and shouldn't be) diagnosticians, but they're often the first to notice signs of possible learning disabilities in their students. Noting when, where, and how students are encountering problems with learning and pinpointing specific areas of struggle are the first steps to supporting learners.

Using an observation tracker ( like this one) can help identify trends and patterns, such as particular times of day when students struggle or how they respond to intervention or small group instruction. Teachers can also put into place supportive practices that help all students but are especially helpful for those with learning disabilities. For example:

Using clear language to explain and teach a new skill;

Narrating or doing a "think-aloud" when demonstrating classroom routines;

Making classroom expectations explicitly clear and displaying them;

Providing directions in both written and picture form;

Teaching, practicing, and reteaching expected behaviors and routines; and

Providing immediate feedback so students can correct behavior or skills in real time.

Going the Extra Mile

For some students, supportive practices may not be enough. Helping students with potential learning disabilities also relies on early evaluation and targeted intervention, which requires knowing your school's referral for evaluation process.

Once teachers know what the steps for referral are, it's time to reach out to the student's family. Here are some tips to navigate conversations successfully:

Be direct about why you're reaching out, but remember that families have their own perspectives and interactions with their child that may not match what you're seeing.

Share specific concerns by describing what you're seeing, providing context, sharing examples, and explaining why this is something you'd like to explore more.

Ask for input and thoughts in an open-ended way that doesn't impose your viewpoint. That may sound like, "What are your thoughts?" or "Have you noticed anything similar at home?"

Share resources to help increase understanding of learning disabilities and developmental delays. Students who have learning disabilities tend to have signs and symptoms outside of school, too, so families may want to use an observation tracker.

Discuss clear next steps. If referral for evaluation seems like the next reasonable step, loop in the appropriate support staff to explain and walk the family through the process.

Keep the focus on finding solutions to support the student. That support can make a world of difference. Remember Max? He's now a successful teenage entrepreneur, something which he and his family credit, in part, to the support of the teachers who recognized his challenges and understood how to encourage his strengths.

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Recognizing Signs of Potential Learning Disabilities in Preschool

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Early intervention services can make a big difference for students who are at risk for learning disabilities. What should teachers look for?

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SIGNS OF DIFFICULTIES

Not living up to their potential

Not trying hard enough

Off track

Hiding out

Missing homework

Acting up

Timing troubles

Test Stress

Emotionality

Avoidance

(Kidworldcitizen, 2018)

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Learning Difficulties identified during World Classroom Exposure

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Learning Difficulties identified during World Classroom Exposure

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Difficulties in second language acquisition may indicate "deficiencies in one or more of the linguistic codes in the student’s native language system." (Schwarz, 1997)

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Foreign language study is an increasingly prominent part of education everywhere. Not only are high school students nearly always required to study a foreign language, but many lower and middle schools have added foreign languages to their curricula, whether as an enrichment or a requirement. Foreign language "magnet" schools have been created in some school districts and seem to be very popular. And of course, it's more common than not that colleges and universities require foreign language study for graduation. For the student unencumbered by a learning disability, foreign language study is indeed an enriching and rewarding experience. For the learning disabled student, however, it can be an unbelievably stressful and humiliating experience, the opposite of what is intended.

While it has long been recognized in the learning disabilities field that foreign language study would be a terrific challenge to learning disabled students, somehow this fact has been widely ignored in the field of foreign language instruction and in schools in general until very recently. Teachers of ESL students have also recognized that there are students who have great difficulty mastering English because of learning disabilities. This fact has added some urgency to the need for recognition of this problem. As more research is being done and more teachers are recognizing the problem, more solutions are being created for the student facing the challenge of learning a foreign or second language and the teachers who teach them.

What causes this difficulty?

The field of second language acquisition has historically blamed language learning failure on a number of factors. Anxiety in the foreign language classroom (anxiety about making mistakes in grammar and pronunciation, about understanding the teacher, about remembering vocabulary) has been prominent as a purported cause of the failure. Among other causes cited in the literature have been lack of effort, lack of motivation, poor language learning habits and low "ability" in language learning. In the late 1960's, Dr. Kenneth Dinklage of Harvard University was compelled to find out why some of Harvard's brightest and best were not passing their language classes. He quickly dismissed lack of effort, seeing that most of these students were putting other courses and their degrees at major risk by devoting unusual amounts of time and effort to their language classes. Similarly, lack of motivation was not a cause, as these students could not graduate without completion of their language requirement. As for anxiety, he realized that the students were coming to see him because they were suffering from extreme anxiety as a result of not being able to pass their language classes. Since most of these students had never failed a class before, he felt that anxiety had not originally played a part in their failure.

When he interviewed these students, Dinklage found that a number of the failing language students had in fact been diagnosed as learning disabled and had overcome their disability through good tutoring and very hard work; still, the foreign language course had triggered the problems the students thought were behind them. Others in the group, Dinklage found after testing, had previously undiagnosed learning disabilities; again the problems had not shown up until foreign language classes were attempted. The third part of the group, he felt, had a "language learning disability," though Dinklage could not find the usual evidence of problems in testing. Clearly these students were unable to be successful in their foreign language study while at the same time they were excellent students in their other classes. He could find no other explanation. Then, in a kind of experiment years ahead of its time, he arranged for a graduate student who had a learning disabled sibling to teach Spanish to some of these struggling Harvard students using methods of instruction known to be helpful to those with learning disabilities. The students taught in this way were mostly able to pass the exams necessary to complete the foreign requirement.

Thus nearly 30 years ago, Dr. Dinklage pinpointed most of the basic ideas and principles relating to foreign languages and learning disabilities: The problem was related to being learning disabled, not to lack of motivation or effort or to anxiety by itself. Anxiety was the result of failure not the cause. Students not previously diagnosed as LD showed up as LD in the foreign language classroom. The learning disability had to be addressed in educational measures taken. Once the LD issues were addressed, the students could learn.

Leonore Ganschow of the University of Miami, Ohio, and Richard Sparks of Mt. St. Joseph's College, both college psychologists who had numerous students referred to them because of problems in foreign language classes, began in the 1980's to look more closely at Dinklage's observations. In their research, they formulated a theory which explained the problems and variations in foreign language acquisition. An extension of earlier research on foreign language acquisition in which language is described as having component parts or linguistic codes, (phonological, semantic and syntactic), Ganschow and Sparks' Linguistic Coding Deficit Hypothesis (LCDH), states that difficulties with foreign language acquisition stem from deficiencies in one or more of these linguistic codes in the student's native language system. These deficiencies result in mild to extreme problems with specific oral and written aspects of language. Their view is that most learners experiencing difficulty with foreign language learning have problems with "phonological awareness". That is , they have trouble with the basic sound units of language, phonemes, and do not recognize or otherwise manipulate these basic units of sound efficiently. As a result, the student may have difficulty with the actual perception and production of language necessary for basic comprehension, speaking and spelling, or with language comprehension, which may affect understanding and/or production of language on a broader scale. According to their theory, excellent language learners are strong in all three of the linguistic codes, and conversely, very poor language learners are weak in all three. In between, however, are students who may be quite glib and able to do conversational language, but who have great difficulty with grammar and writing in the new language, or the opposite kind of student who perhaps reads and writes fairly well, but cannot speak with a good accent in the foreign language or cannot understand very much of what is spoken to him or her. These difficulties, the researchers say, spring from deficits in the native language. That these problems may be overt or so subtle as to have been ignored was observed by Dinklage many years ago, and this fact contributes to the difficulty many experts and non-experts have in believing that the problem is in fact based in first language. How can a student be competent, sometimes very competent, in his first language and have difficulties with a new language, difficulties that are supposedly based in the first language? It is hard to accept.

How can learning disabled students be taught foreign languages?

Once they had pinpointed what they felt was the root of the foreign language learning problem, Ganschow and Sparks began investigating ways that learning disabled students could be helped to learn a foreign language. At least two approaches to foreign language instruction different from "normal" or traditional language instruction have emerged as being effective.

The first and most researched approach is a response to Ganschow and Spark's findings that many, if not most, students having trouble with foreign language acquisition have phonological deficits in their first language. Ganschow and Sparks theorized further that to help these students, the sound system of the target language must be very explicitly taught. In order to test this theory, Ganschow and Sparks collaborated with a high school Spanish teacher who had learned about the Orton-Gillingham method of teaching phonology, reading and spelling to very significantly learning disabled students. In this method, sounds are presented in a highly structured fashion with a great deal of visual, kinesthetic and tactile practice and input. The Spanish teacher, Karen Miller, has tested the effectiveness of teaching Spanish to learning disabled students using the Orton-Gillingham approach. The research on her students has shown quite conclusively that LD students taught Spanish in this way have been able to learn and retain it. Another collaborator, Elke Schneider, has had similar results teaching German to LD students.

In their studies on Karen Miller's students, Ganschow and Sparks found that by being taught phonological skills in one language, the students improved their phonological awareness in English also. This finding has led to a variation on the method of teaching phonology in the target language: teach the fundamentals of phonology in the student's native language before foreign language instruction begins. That is, students are taught to recognize phonemes, to decode, or read words, efficiently and to encode, or apply the sounds to the written language. Basically, they learn what language is and how its sounds and parts function. Application of this knowledge to the language they are trying to learn is the next step. This has proven an effective remediation as well. In fact, so strongly do Ganschow and Sparks believe this, they now recommend very strongly that such phonological skills be much more heavily stressed when children are learning to read. They feel students' reading and language skills will be much stronger, and future problems with foreign language acquisition will be headed off for many.

The second approach to language instruction which has been effective has been to adapt the foreign language courses according to principles of instruction known to be effective for LD students. This means making such changes as reducing the syllabus to the essential elements, slowing the pace of instruction quite considerably, reducing the vocabulary demand, providing constant review and incorporating as much visual/tactile/kinesthetic (i.e. multisensory) stimulation and support as possible. Many of these course adaptations were also responses to the specific complaints and requests of foreign language students having trouble in their classes. Furthermore, in some schools there are courses designed for the student strong in listening and speaking skills but weak in reading and writing, and vice versa. The University of Colorado at Boulder has shown this latter approach to be effective in Latin and Spanish courses adapted for LD students. A phonological component is part of this adapted curriculum.

What if these instructional conditions can't be met?

While it is good news that the underlying cause of problems with foreign language learning has been tentatively identified and that ways have been found to teach LD students foreign language, two major problems remain. The first is that it is relatively rare that a school can, or more importantly, is willing to, devote an entire foreign language section or class to LD students. The second is that finding teachers trained to teach foreign language to LD students is even rarer. Most often in the real world, LD students find themselves in a classroom of so-called "normal" language learners. In this case, the students must rely on the willingness of the teacher to be inventive and flexible and on the school or school system itself to accommodate the student to the best of its ability and to the requirements of the law. As any LD student and his or her family will tell you, this is rarely a smooth process. It is almost equally painful when a teacher recognizes the needs of a particular student, but does not have the time or resources or support to be able to adequately accommodate that student, except to the degree the law requires.

As with any aspect of learning for any learning disabled student, no single solution is good for everybody. Stories abound of learning disabled students who have learned a foreign language one way or another. The question to be asked however, is what "learned" means. Students may become highly conversational with excellent accents and still be quite weak in grammar and in written language. Others may be very skilled readers of a foreign language and yet be virtually unable to converse in more than the most rudimentary phrases poorly pronounced. Still others may be fairly competent in all areas but never come close to attaining an accent that is close to "native" in the foreign language.

Consequently, when a learning disabled student faces foreign language learning, a realistic assessment of the student's situation, problems and needs should be done. In other words, what the student may be able to do in a language and what the learning situation offers may not match at all. A student able to do oral language may be in a situation where passing grammar and translation tests is really what is required. Similarly, someone who reads and translates proficiently may be up against a teacher for whom pronunciation and conversation are of great importance. In cases such as these, "reasonable accommodation" may indeed mean providing a waiver and/or requiring a substitution. Some colleges are very inventive on the substitution issue. Catholic University in Washington, DC requires literature or history courses in cultures that are not based in romance languages. For example, students can study Middle Eastern culture or African or Chinese history or literature. Sometimes sign language is permitted as a substitution, though there is debate about that as a viable alternative to a foreign language.

Policies on waivers from foreign language requirements vary enormously. Every school has its own set of requirements. Some require full documentation of a learning disability with findings pointing to the deficits which are associated with foreign language learning problems; others might require a score on the Modern Language Aptitude Test ( MLAT). Unfortunately for the LD student, many schools, especially colleges, may require evidence of having attempted a foreign language and failed.

The path of the LD student facing a foreign language requirement is made even rougher by the fact that many schools lack personnel who are versed in the problems of foreign language difficulties for learning disabled students. Even prominent universities who boast of their accommodation of learning disabled and other handicapped students may be ignorant of this problem. Certainly, the foreign language departments are even more unaware of its existence. Students and families asking schools for accommodation on this issue need to be well-versed themselves and prepared to provide literature or at least reference to literature that will inform the school of this problem. Even better, when possible, parents or adult students should discuss the problem with a school before enrolling, to be sure that the problem can be dealt with. In one case, an LD student known to have such poor phonological skills that any oral foreign language study was out of the question, worked out an agreement with his school that he would become proficient in the reading of French if the school would accept that for his language requirement. Since he was a European history major and a brilliant student with excellent reasoning and memory skills, this seemed possible. Indeed, in a short time he was reading French texts quite comfortably and was well on his way to a reasonable compromise with his school of choice.

Once again, as with all things associated with learning disabilities, the answers are often complex and long-term, and everyone student's problem and solution is likely to be different. What is most important is that the problem of foreign language learning for the learning disabled be recognized for what it is and that the student be fairly and reasonably accommodated. Hopefully, as learning disabilities personnel, foreign language professionals and others become more aware of the research and literature, the path for the LD student facing foreign language requirements will become smoother.

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learning disabilities and foreign language learning

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english language learners with learning disabilities

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Learning Disabilities and Foreign Language Learning | LD OnLine

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Foreign language study is an increasingly prominent part of education everywhere. For the student unencumbered by a learning disability, foreign language study is indeed an enriching and rewarding experience. For the learning disabled student, however, it can be an unbelievably stressful and humilia…

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This video outlines the way we learn language. As a world language educator, it is important to understand the science behind language acquisition in order to support all students in SLA.

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What is Second Language Acquisition (SLA)? | Science Behind Language Learning

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Distinguishing Between Disability and Language Difference

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Distinguishing Between Disability and Language Difference

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In order to support all students, it is important to assess what the true issue is. It is important to obtain and assess meaningful and accurate data in order to provide appropriate services and supports.

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Assessment Utilizing 3 Main Data Sources

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Assessment Utilizing 3 Main Data Sources

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How to gather meaningful data about dual language learners.

If only utilizing a single type of data, evaluators will only obtain a limited view of a child and their capabilities.

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According to Stechuk, "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." (What do teachers need to know about young dual language learners with disabilities? 2024)

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Utilizing a variety of communication methods, a student can become engaged in the classroom environment. Engagement allows teachers to better observe and assess what a student knows and understands. (What do teachers need to know about young dual language learners with disabilities? 2024)

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Standardized testing results provide data but are not reliable in isolation. 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. (What do teachers need to know about young dual language learners with disabilities? 2024) Because of this, the other two data sources are considered more helpful in the assessment process.

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Some ways to support typical dual language learners:

1. Offer the dominant language part of the day in the classroom, and then English or whatever the second language is at a different time in the classroom.

2. Using language for instruction.

3. When any adult or peer is speaking in a language other than the dominant language that the child has learned thus far—using visual cues, pictures, objects, pantomime, anything to help the child to be able to follow the directions and make that connection with that word and with what that word means or what that phrase means—giving the children ample opportunities to practice and use those words in context is a great way for children to develop their vocabulary and language skills.

4. Having cultural artifacts around the classroom, having some things labeled in the different languages of the classroom, but usually those are just going to be the things that you’re really going to refer to like the labeling of a certain play center that could be in the different languages, because that would be a center or source of linguistic input that would be used on a daily basis.

5. Use all of the techniques that used for helping any child to learn language with expanding on what they say and asking different types of questions and waiting long enough for the child to process. Using a lot of wait time would be a good strategy for teachers working with dual language learners. (What do teachers need to know about young dual language learners with disabilities? 2024)

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November 17, 2015, The IRIS Center

Patsy Pierce, a Consultant for the National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, shares her expertise on evaluating dual language learners, with special attention paid to the importance of determining the difference between a language delay and a language difference (time: 14:14).
Questions asked of Patsy Pierce in this audio:

1. Dr. Pierce, what are some important strategies that teachers can use to support young DLLs with disabilities?

2. What are some unique issues that educators need to consider when screening and evaluating young dual language learners? Additionally, how can evaluators distinguish between a disability and a language difference?

Patsy Pierce, PhD
Consultant
National Center on Cultural
and Linguistic Responsiveness

Transcript: Patsy Pierce, PhD
Narrator: This interview is brought to you by the IRIS Center, a national center funded by the Office of Special Education Programs.
Dr. Pierce, what are some important strategies that teachers can use to support young DLLs with disabilities?

Dr. Pierce: I think the first strategy they need to remember is they need to have strong language models. So whatever language the teacher speaks best, she should communicate with the children in that language. Perhaps there are other adults in the room at different times, and perhaps they speak a different language with greater strength, so they could speak to the children in that language. Children, including children with language and learning disabilities, can learn more than one language. It's a strength to be able to have those models of the different language. The research is pointing to it's not effective in most instances to do simultaneous translation. So we don't read a sentence in a book in Spanish and then turn around and interpret it in English, or vice versa. It can actually be confusing to dual language learners.

Young children, they're developing their home language at the same time they're developing English or second language. So the evidence right now is pointing to if you do have the resources to do a dual language program that you offer the dominant language part of the day in the classroom, and then English or whatever the second language is at a different time in the classroom. And you're not repeating things. You're just using that language for the language of instruction. And when any adult or peer is speaking in a language other than the dominant language that the child has learned thus far-using visual cues, pictures, objects, pantomime, anything to help the child to be able to follow the directions and make that connection with that word and with what that word means or what that phrase means-giving the children ample opportunities to practice and use those words in context is a great way for children to develop their vocabulary and language skills.

Having cultural artifacts around the classroom, having some things labeled in the different languages of the classroom, but usually those are just going to be the things that you're really going to refer to like the labeling of a certain play center that could be in the different languages, because that would be a center or source of linguistic input that would be used on a daily basis. You wouldn't want to overwhelm children by having everything labeled in both English and all the languages that are present. You just would never really use all those labels, and it could be overwhelming to some children. The main thing is being able to be a good language model and use all of the techniques that we use for helping any child to learn language with expanding on what they say and asking different types of questions and waiting long enough for the child to process. We got to wait a little bit longer for dual language learners and especially if they do have a disability, because it will take them longer to process in their different languages and respond in their own language or in their second language. Using a lot of wait time would be a good strategy for teachers working with dual language learners.

Narrator:: What are some unique issues that educators need to consider when screening and evaluating young dual language learners? Additionally, how can evaluators distinguish between a disability and a language difference?

Dr. Pierce: The first thing that we all need to remember is that there are virtually no valid screening or assessment instruments for children who are speaking a language other than English. There have been a few developed for children who are Spanish speaking, but even with those assessments and screening instruments we have to ensure that we are addressing the different dialectical needs of people from different places around the world that speak Spanish. An assessment, a screening instrument, or an evaluation tool that has not been normed specifically on a population really cannot be used to determine whether or not a child has a disability, because it's not valid, and it's not giving the appropriate information. So instead of relying on our typical standardized screening instruments and assessment instruments, we really need to use a multiple assessment process and have multiple informants to look at the whole child over time. Once we talk with family members, teachers do observations. We have documentation of children and their interactions and their play and their work over time then we might be able to put together a more realistic picture of whether or not to make a referral for an in-depth evaluation to determine if there is actually a disability.

The same would be true for the evaluators. That is just going to have to be a more authentic assessment approach where different people, especially family members, are all used to help to determine if there is some sort of disability or delay. It's tough, because a lot of people think, "Oh, the child's not speaking English; therefore, they must be delayed." But we would have to do the assessment in the child's home language, too, because the delay in language would also be in their home language as well as in English. It wouldn't just be an English-only delay. We really need to talk to families about if they've got any concerns and keeping in mind that different cultures have different views about disability and different levels of comfort sharing concerns about disability. But that certainly would help us to know if we do need additional observations and assessment if family members also have some concerns.

If the family member as well as teachers have concerns more about global delays, instead of just language, and seeing how the child is interacting with children. Do they have some concerns about their social and emotional development, their cognitive development, their physical development? That, of course, would be a good sign that we would need further assessment.

When we are going to screen and evaluate young children who are dual language learners, we need to find out what their dominant language is. So, again, we need to talk with the families about what languages their child has been exposed to and how often. So, for example, is the child hearing a language different from their home language when they're visiting grandparents? If so, how often do they do this, because that amount of exposure can help us, again, to determine is there just a difference in the amount of the different languages that the child has been exposed to and so therefore they may know more in one language than in another. Another question to find out from families, has the child been exposed to different languages at the same time from birth? So perhaps they're simultaneously developing dual languages, or have they just been primarily exposed to one language in the infant and toddler years, and then they're being exposed at school or in some other setting to English or another second language, so that they're more sequential dual language learners? All of that information really helps us to paint a clear picture of the child in context, so that we won't make a mistake and think that they're delayed in their home language and/or in English, because we've talked to the family to find out what has been their experience in English. All these are great questions that help us understand where a child may be developmentally in language learning.

In addition to talking with families about the different languages and different experiences that a child has had, we can also use some parent-based screening instruments like "Ages and Stages." There is a valid version for Spanish-speaking children with something a little more structured and formal that we can really find out about a family's concern of their child's development. Are they concerned specifically about speech and language development in their home language? Then that would give us a good opportunity to talk to families about a language delay in their home language might also possibly cause a language delay in English. But we really need to be able to assess the child in both home language and in English.

We do need to consider also a young dual language learner's unique set of circumstances. Again, we can learn those by talking to family members, doing home visits, doing ongoing observations of the child at home, in the community, and in classrooms. We just need to know perhaps they've never been exposed to some of the items that we might want them to manipulate when we're using a screener. Perhaps they just have not had the chance to really play with some of the toys, so therefore they may not seem as competent. We definitely want to rule out limited exposure that's causing the child to seem somewhat delayed in a classroom situation.

We need to figure out their conceptual knowledge. Young children who are dual language learners often have learned concepts in their home language, but that yet hasn't transferred to English, or whatever the second language is that they're learning. So it really is important to have the child screened and/or assessed in their home language as well as in English.

We need to determine each child's interests, their temperament, their learning style, how long they've been in a particular setting. We know with all children that the more familiar they are with the people and with materials, with the environment, the more competence they show, and this is especially true for young children who are dual language learners, because they are also learning a second language at the same time they're becoming familiar with perhaps different people and different experiences.

We know language learning is a very dynamic process that may change from minute to minute or hour to hour, so that's why it's so important to do ongoing assessment and do observations at different times and in different circumstances. For example, a child may show more or less complex receptive and language ability, depending on how familiar they are with a story book. Or if this has been a story book shared in their home language, they may be able to show more competence in answering questions or interacting with that story book in the classroom even in English, because they are familiar with some of the pictures and concepts of the book in their home language.

So, overall, we need to not rely on standardized assessments, because they're probably not going to be normed on that particular population that the dual language learner is coming from. And we just need to use our authentic assessment approaches by observing and documenting over time and involve the family as much as possible to find out what they think about the child's ability and what they know about how the child can learn. So I think those are the main things we need to think about when screening and assessing young dual language learners.

Narrator: Thank you for listening to this episode of the IRIS Center podcast. For more information about the IRIS Center and its resources, visit us at www.iriscenter.com [https://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/].

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November 17, 2015, The IRIS Center Patsy Pierce, a Consultant for the National Center on Cultural and Linguistic Responsiveness, shares her expertise on evaluating dual language learners, with special attention paid to the importance of determining the difference between a language delay and a language difference (time: 14:14).

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After an assessment, it may be determined that the language difficulties may stem from being a DLL. In this case, teachers and support staff can provide supports and resources for students and families to help them achieve language goals

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Evaluators/team members must use data to answer these questions:

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Evaluators/team members must use data to answer these questions:

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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

(What do teachers need to know about young dual language learners with disabilities? 2024)

NOTE: When language barriers exist, trained translators must be provided to ensure proper communication

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Dual Language Learners with Learning Difficulties

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Dual Language Learners with Learning Difficulties

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After students are assessed, it may be determined that their language difficulties are due to learning difficulties and an IEP may be created.

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"Team" Collaboration to Benefit Dual Language Learners (ESL) with Learning Difficulties

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"Team" Collaboration to Benefit Dual Language Learners (ESL) with Learning Difficulties

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"Appropriately serving English Learners (ELs) with disabilities requires a team effort involving professionals from multiple disciplines to ensure that instruction is provided to support both the language-learning and disability-related needs of the students.  Critical to this endeavor are bilingual and English as a second language (ESL) teachers who have the skills needed to assess students’ proficiency in the native language and/or English and to design instruction that is both linguistically and culturally relevant. "(Robertson, 2019)

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Why a team approach matters for serving ELLs in special education

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When Learning Difficulties are Identified in a World Language Classroom.

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When Learning Difficulties are Identified in a World Language Classroom.

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Commonly, there are two circumstances under which students with learning difficulties are in need of support in the world language classroom.

1. They have an identified LD upon entering the class and may have to meet a world language requirement

2. They have no previously identified LD but upon utilizing language skills (like phonological awareness) in a new language, difficulties can come to light. Often times students with later diagnosed LD's may have created strategies or received other supports in early childhood that effectively allowed them to navigate their birth language challenges.

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Process to Determine Eligibility For Special Education Services

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Process to Determine Eligibility For Special Education Services

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This article describes the multistep process used in the U.S. to determine if a student is eligible for special education resources.

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When is a child's eligibility for special education and related services determined?

In most states the eligibility of a child for special education and related services is considered when a child has arrived at the Tier 3 level of RTI (Response to Intervention). When a child has been in Tier 2 for a pre-determined amount of time and an evaluation is given, then a meeting is called to determine eligibility for special education services. Who makes the decision about whether a child is eligible for special education and related services?

The parent of the child and a team of qualified professionals must determine whether the child is a child with a disability and in need of special education and related services.

(The determination of whether a child suspected of having a specific learning disability is a child with a disability, must be made by the child's parents and a team of qualified professionals which must include the child's regular teacher; or a regular classroom teacher qualified to teach a child of his or her age if the child does not have a regular teacher; or, for a child of less than school age, an individual qualified by the SEA to teach a child of his or her age; and at least one person qualified to conduct individual diagnostic examinations of children, such as a school psychologist, speech-language pathologist, or remedial reading teacher.)

What must the team consider in determining eligibility?

In interpreting evaluation data for the purpose of determining if a child is a child with a disability and in need of special education, each public agency is to draw upon information from a variety of sources, including aptitude and achievement tests (but not restricted to these results), parent input, teacher recommendations, physical condition, social or cultural background, and adaptive behavior.

Are there additional procedures for evaluating children and determining the existence of a specific learning disability?

Yes. IDEA includes the following additional procedures when evaluating and determining the existence of a specific learning disability:

1. A team may determine that a child has a specific learning disability if:

The child does not achieve commensurate with his or her age and ability levels in one or more of the areas listed below, if provided with learning experiences appropriate for the child's age and ability levels; and

The child has a severe discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in one or more of the following areas: Oral expression; listening comprehension; written expression; basic reading skill; reading comprehension; mathematics calculation; mathematics reasoning, and/or a presented portfolio, and/or teacher reports on daily work which shows academic performance is not in an acceptable range and the learning processing disability can be seen or it was stated.

2. The team may not identify a child as having a specific learning disability if the severe discrepancy between ability and achievement is primarily the result of:

A visual, hearing, or motor impairment;

intellectual disabilities;

Emotional disturbance; or

Environmental, cultural or economic disadvantage.

3. Observation:

At least one team member other than the child's regular teacher shall observe the child's academic performance in the regular classroom setting.

In the case of a child of less than school age or out of school, a team member shall observe the child in an environment appropriate for a child of that age.

4. Written report For a child suspected of having a specific learning disability, the documentation of the team's determination of eligibility must include a statement of:

Whether the child has a specific learning disability.

The basis for making the determination.

The relevant behavior noted during the observation of the child.

The relationship of that behavior to the child's academic functioning.

The educationally relevant medical findings, if any.

Whether there is a severe discrepancy between achievement and ability that is not correctable without special education and related services.

The determination of the team concerning the effects of environmental, cultural, or economic disadvantage.

Each team member shall certify in writing whether the report reflects his or her conclusion. If it does not reflect his or her conclusion, the team member must submit a separate statement presenting his or her conclusions.

What are the two components that must be present in order for a child to be eligible for special education and related services?

In order for a child to be declared eligible for special education and related services it must be determined that the child is a "child with a disability" and is in need of special education and related services.

How does the law define a "child with a disability?"

The term "a child with a disability" means:

A child evaluated according to IDEA as having intellectual disabilities, a hearing impairment including deafness, a speech or language impairment, a visual impairment including blindness, serious emotional disturbance (referred to in IDEA as emotional disturbance), an orthopedic impairment, autism, traumatic brain injury, another health impairment, a specific learning disability, deaf-blindness, or multiple disabilities, and

Who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.

Is there a non-categorical designation of a child with a disability in addition to the above categories?

At the discretion of the State and Local Education Agencies, a "child with a disability," aged three through nine, may include a child who is experiencing developmental delays, as defined by the State and as measured by appropriate diagnostic instruments and procedures, in one or more of the following areas: physical development, cognitive development, communication development, social or emotional development, or adaptive development, and who, by reason thereof, needs special education and related services.

What does IDEA require when determining eligibility for special education and related services based on "developmental delay?"

When determining eligibility for special education and related services based on "developmental delay" rather than a specific category, IDEA requires the following:

If the state decides to allow eligibility based on developmental delay, local districts will be able to choose whether or not they wish to follow suit. If the state does not adopt the developmental delay category, local districts may not use the category for establishing eligibility for special education and related services.

States may not require local districts to adopt and use the term "developmental delay" for any of its students.

States that adopt the developmental delay category may apply it to children aged three through nine or a subset of that age range, e.g. aged three through five

States and local districts who choose to use the developmental delay category may also use one or more of the specific categories.

States may adopt a common definition of developmental delay for its programs under IDEA, Parts B and C.

If a local district uses the developmental delay category, it must conform to the state's definition of developmental delay and the age range adopted by the state.

What are possible implications for students with learning disabilities when they are identified as having a developmental delay?

The use of a "developmental delay" category to determine whether a child is eligible for special education and related services could make it possible to identify some children early before they experience failure in school and fall behind their peers. Many children with learning disabilities show delays in one or more of the areas specified. There is, however, some concern that children with learning disabilities will be included in the "developmental delay" category without identifying the specific processing disorder/s present and, thus the specific intervention strategies needed will not be provided. Parents should ensure that:

Assessment tools and strategies used gather relevant functional and developmental information.

Tests and other evaluation materials used include those tailored to assess specific areas of educational need.

Assessment tools and strategies provide relevant information that directly assists persons in determining the education needs of the child.

Since States and Local Education Agencies are not mandated to follow a certain course, but can make a choice regarding whether to use "developmental delay" for children aged three to nine, parents need to determine the eligibility criteria used by their State and Local Education Agencies. Contact special education administrators at the State Department of Education or the local school district for this information.

Are there other non-categorical designations?

Some states have expanded the non-categorical age past the "developmental delay" age span (3 through 9 years) to include students birth through twenty-one years of age. If states use a designation instead of categorical disabilities, certain guidelines must be followed. While the state determines the criteria for eligibility, the team must provide a comprehensive evaluation of the child that could determine a disability as defined by IDEA.

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Eligibility: Determining Whether a Child is Eligible for Special Education Services

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In most states the eligibility of a child for special education and related services is considered when a child has arrived at the Tier 3 level of RTI (Response to Intervention). When a child has been in Tier 2 for a pre-determined amount of time and an evaluation is given, then a meeting is called to determine eligibility for special education services.

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Learning difficulties identified prior to World Language Classroom Exposure

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Learning difficulties identified prior to World Language Classroom Exposure

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Students in a world language classroom with an identified LD can benefit from modifications in the classroom. World language teachers would benefit from receiving additional training in working with students with LD's including Orton Gillingham training. (Schwarz, 1997)

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How I Can Support Students with Learning Difficulties in my World Language Class

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How I Can Support Students with Learning Difficulties in my World Language Class

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What might the foreign language teacher do to assist students with mild to moderate foreign language learning difficulties?

A Structured Literacy approach that benefits students who struggle to learn to read and spell in their native language also benefits students who have difficulties learning a foreign language. The following recommendations are based on the key principles of the Structured Literacy approach:

Provide opportunities for students to practice and review a concept frequently (repetitive principle).

Teach language concepts in a logical progression and help students to categorize concepts; also organize these language concepts from simple to complex (structured, sequential principles).

Build on what students already know, and make the connection between the known and the new information explicit (cumulative principle).

Systematically and explicitly teach the phonemes or speech sounds of the foreign language.

Directly teach students the sounds of the letters in the foreign language and the letter(s) the sounds represent (alphabetic/phonetic principle).

Show students how to think about a language concept to be learned and ask them to explain the concept in their own words; examples include rules for applying word endings, appropriate word order, and subject/verb agreement (metacognitive principle)

Model for students the way to break apart words while reading, especially words with more than one syllable (analysis principle).

Model for students the way to put parts of words back together for spelling (synthetic principle).

(At-risk students and the study of Foreign Language in school 2020)