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How to Address Special Education Needs in the ELL Classroom

By: Kristina Robertson (2007)

"We worry about what a child will be tomorrow but we forget that he is someone today."

— Karl Meninger

Grade Levels: All
Subject: All

I remember a former Somali student of mine, Samira, who was dedicated, attentive, and friendly. I thoroughly enjoyed having her in my class as we worked on her English skills. When it came to assigning final grades, though, I had a dilemma because Samira wasn't able to successfully complete assignments. She came to my classroom often, asked for additional help, and did her best to understand the directions and complete the work. My heart broke every time I corrected her assignments because I realized that despite her efforts she either wasn't able to do the assignment, or she had copied someone else's work. She was obviously struggling, and at the time I attributed it to her refugee experience and lack of formal education. I thought that she just needed more time and English language exposure.

Now that I have more experience and have had the benefit of collaborating with ELL Special Education teachers, I believe it is likely that Samira had a learning disability that went undiagnosed because our teaching staff had not received training in how to recognize and address special education needs for ELL students.

I hope that your ELL staff will receive the same training and professional development, and I encourage all ELL educators to look for and request such training opportunities. To get you started in the meantime, I will provide an overview of practical guidance on steps to follow when considering if a student has special education needs.

In addition, Colorín Colorado recently produced an excellent webcast featuring an interview with Dr. Elsa Cardenas-Hagan on the topic of ELL students with learning disabilities. I highly recommend that teachers view this webcast to get good information on the issues surrounding ELL students with special education needs.

Initial Assessments

As you consider whether a student may have special education needs, it is important to remember to give ELL students time to adjust to their new surroundings and language, and to have an opportunity to demonstrate their learning over time. This may take up to a year, accounting for cultural adjustment, a silent receptive period, and the development of literacy skills in a second language.

However, if a child has obvious signs of cognitive or physical issues such as those listed below, they need to receive immediate support. Factors leading to immediate referral include:

  • Documentation of known previous medical condition(s)
  • A parent's request for an assessment
  • An accident/injury, with doctor's request for an assessment
  • Known brain damage
  • Problems with hearing or vision
  • Physical disability
  • Cleft palate
  • Cerebral palsy
  • Brain injury
  • Polio
  • Post traumatic stress
  • Documented severe malnutrition

After a year, the teacher(s) will have had more experience with the student and will have had multiple opportunities to observe his/her work. It can be tricky to determine if an ELL student is struggling with language barriers or if he/she has special needs because many of the behaviors displayed are the same. For example, if a teacher has a student who refuses to answer questions, makes inappropriate comments, has poor recall, comprehension and vocabulary, and struggles when sequencing ideas, the teacher might be concerned that the child needs special education support. While that may be the case, it's also important to remember that an ELL student may display any of these behaviors due to language difficulties.

Language Acquisition or Cognitive Difficulty?

The next question, then, is how a teacher knows if a problem is related to language or if it reflects a cognitive difficulty. The general guideline is that if a student is making academic progress at about the same rate as other ELL students from similar backgrounds (students who share similar linguistic, cultural, educational, or refugee experiences), then the student probably does not have special education needs. Rather, he/she may just need more time and language support as a result of having to process so much new information.

On the other hand, if the student is progressing much more slowly than other ELL students with a similar background, or needs a lot of repeated instruction when other ELLs with similar educational experience do not, it is a good idea to take some initial steps to see if the student has special needs that haven't been identified. I know of a student who was having significant struggles with learning; when his teacher met with the family and a bilingual interpreter, she was told that the boy had had a brain injury in his home country, and learning had always been difficult for him. There were no special supports available to him in his prior school, so his parents never thought to ask for them.

An English Language Learner can be referred for academic assessment if:

  • Documentation shows no progress or change resulting from instructional strategies, alternative instruction, or interventions. An interpreter who speaks the student's native language should participate in interventions whenever possible.
  • The student has attended a U.S. school for at least one year. Documentation of the student's school record should include previous school experience, the location of previous schools, and length of time at each school.
  • ESL and/or bilingual staff support the position that the student is performing differently than his/her cultural peers.
  • Parents have been contacted and attended an assessment planning meeting and agree with the decision to assess.

Academic Interventions

If an ELL student is suspected of having special needs, it is very important that academic interventions are tried and the results recorded before any formal assessment is requested. This is important because students may have very different learning styles or comfort levels with the U.S. educational environment, or may be struggling with literacy skills. When a teacher does intentional interventions to provide support and documents the results, valuable information is then available if an assessment is needed in the future.

Here are some common academic intervention options:

  • Re-word the text of the reading assignment in simple phrases.
  • Write hints or reminders in the text.
  • Use real life experiences when discussing the reading material.
  • Have the work or tests read orally.
  • Pair ELL students with other ELLs.
  • Use manipulatives or hands-on aids.
  • Use a tape recorder to play books on tape.
  • Provide native language support to the student in the classroom.
  • Explicitly teach study skills/habits, as well as effective ways of using educational resources and materials.
  • Use the student's name in instructional examples.
  • Break work into smaller pieces and do task analysis.
  • Provide visuals to support academic work.
  • Encourage re-reading of tasks/instructions.
  • Provide more time to finish assignments/tests.
  • Have the student use a 3 x 5 index card to cover the lines above or below while reading materials or taking tests.
  • Pair the English Language Learner with a gifted or older same-language student in tutorial situations.

Important note:
English as a Second Language (ESL) classes are not an intervention, but collaborating with the ESL teacher on planned interventions is helpful.

Taking Cultural Factors into Account During Assessments

If the interventions have not been effective up to this point, then further information must be gathered and an initial evaluation conference must be held with the parents of the student. It is extremely important that a highly trained interpreter be available to assist in explaining the concerns and the evaluation process in a way the family can understand. For example, in the Somali language there is no direct term that means "Special Education" and if the interpretation is not done sensitively, the family may believe the staff is referring to the student as "crazy" or "mentally defective."

If there is no trained interpreter at the building, it is possible that the district has a central interpretation staff that has had training in special education assessments. If the district does not have such staff, it is possible the state may have resources to assist. In the initial evaluation conference it is important to share with the parents the interventions that have been tried in the classroom, an explanation of what is involved in an initial assessment, and what support would be available to the child if he/she qualifies.

A good place to start an evaluation is with a very thorough family interview. The special education staff member and an interpreter can ask many in-depth and background questions to get more insight into any environmental or physical issues that may affect the child's learning.

Example questions might include:

  1. Have there been any serious health problems in the family? Parents? Grandparents? Aunts and uncles?
  2. What is the educational level of the parents and of the child? What was the child's educational experience prior to coming to the U.S.?
  3. Has there been any trauma in the family? For example, has the child been involved in a violent situation, or witnessed violence and death in a war situation?
  4. Has anyone in the family ever had psychological issues such as depression? (This may need to be described more in behavioral ways, such as describing someone who was sad or slept a lot.)
  5. Have there been any other identifiable behaviors in the family such as stuttering or dyslexia? (Again, the behaviors may need to be explained.)

Special Education Support

If the child qualifies for special education services, then due process is followed, and again it is very important that the family have a skilled interpreter at the meeting when they consent to service and for all future Independent Education Plan (IEP) meetings. It is best if the child can receive special education services from a teacher who speaks the student's language, but this type of support is not often available.

Special education teachers who are working with ELL students would benefit from attending professional development sessions and getting resources that will assist them in understanding how to work effectively with ELL students. In the Hotlinks section I have included links to the Minnesota Department of Education website which contains lots of valuable ELL Special Education information, as well as forms translated into many languages.

As I think about my former student, Samira, I wonder where she is, and I hope that she's gotten the support she needed. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have realized that her inability to make academic progress at a similar pace to her ELL peers was a red flag, and not just a language issue. I encourage all teachers to find the support and detailed information they need to ensure that all of their students receive the services necessary for academic success.

All information included in the hotlinks below appears courtesy of Minneapolis Public Schools Special Education ELL department.

Hot links

  • Mobility International USA

    Mobility International USA (MIUSA) is an internationally recognized non-profit with a mission to empower people with disabilities around the world to achieve their human rights through international exchange and international development.

  • National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange

    The National Clearinghouse on Disability and Exchange (NCDE) is a comprehensive and free one-stop resource for people with disabilities, exchange and disability staff interested in study, work, intern, volunteer, research or teach abroad programs.

  • The IRIS Center for Faculty Enhancement

    The IRIS Center is a national center that aims to provide high-quality resources for college and university faculty and professional development providers about students with disabilities.

  • Technical Assistance Alliance for Parent Centers

    The website provides publications, resources, workshop and training curricula, and a calendar of events for parents of children with disabilities.

  • TeachingLD

    TeachingLD provides resources about teaching students with Learning Disabilities, including content about assessment, instruction, and policy. Topics include curriculum-based measurement for monitoring student progress; teaching methods such a co-teaching and direct instruction; and current issues such as response-to-intervention models.

  • ReadHowYouWant

    ReadHowYouWant offers the widest selection of on-demand, optimized alternative format editions on the market today. You can order books in the format you want at an affordable price.

  • The Faculty Room

    The Faculty Room is a space for faculty and administrators at post-secondary institutions to learn about how to create classroom environments and activities that maximize the learning of all students, including those with disabilities.

  • Audible Kids

    Audible Kids provides digital audio content for children. Shop, purchase, and download digital audio editions of books, newspapers, and magazines; original programming; and TV and radio subscriptions.

  • Ghotit

    Ghotit offers unique writing and reading online services for people who suffer from dyslexia or dysgraphia. Ghotit's first service is an online context sensitive spell checker. Ghotit was founded by people that suffer from dyslexia and it's mission is to improve the overall quality of life of a dyslexic.

  • EARNworks

    EARN is the premier recruiting source for jobseekers with disabilities, providing access to jobs openings and organizations that can help with careers.

  • Colorín Colorado Webcast: ELL Students with Learning Disabilities.

    Featuring bilingual speech pathologist Dr. Elsa Cardenas-Hagan. Includes powerpoint presentation, discussion questions, and related readings.

  • Colorín Colorado: ELLs and Learning Disabilities

    Colorín Colorado presents a variety of articles about ELLs with Learning Disabilities in our Topics A to Z section.

  • Colorín Colorado: ELL Learning Disabilities FAQs

  • LDOnline: What's 'Normal,' What's Not: Acquiring English as a Second Language

    How can you tell when a student has a language-learning disability and when he or she is merely in the normal process of acquiring a second language?

  • LDOnline: English Language Learners with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies

    Students struggle in school for a variety of reasons. Unless these students receive appropriate intervention, they will continue to struggle, and the gap between their achievement and that of their peers will widen over time.

  • American Speech-Hearing Association

    This website lists readings and related materials on Communication Development and Disorders in Multicultural Populations.

  • Minnesota Department of Education: ELL Special Education Website

    This site offers translated special education forms written in the following languages: Arabic, Bosnian, Cambodian, Hmong, Lao, Russian, Somali, Spanish, and Vietnamese. It also has links to an ELL Special Education manual.

  • Minnesota Department of Education: ELL Companion Manual

    This webpage has links to each chapter in the manual and includes information such as "collection and use of background information."

  • The National Center for Culturally Responsive Educational Systems

    "Preventing Disproportionate Representation: Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Prereferral Interventions" (PDF file)

  • National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition

    "A Suggested Guide to the Special Education, Pre-Referral Process for Bilingual Learners." This document provides practical information on a step-by-step process to follow in evaluating bilingual learners. (PDF file)

  • U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants

    A Resource Guide for Serving Refugees with Disabilities

  • National Consortium of Torture Treatment Programs

    This is a listing of organizations across the country that offer educational programs for people working with populations that have experienced violence, and that provide treatment services for victims.

  • PRIMERS

    The Primers provide background information and resources to facilitate the successful inclusion of students with disabilities in charter schools.

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