Cristina is an education specialist at the Illinois Resource Center (IRC) as well as an associate with Paridad Consulting. She collaborates with educators in the US and Canada on developing culturally and linguistically responsive multi-tiered systems of support (MTSS); mathematics; literacy across the content areas; multilingual education; engaging parents, ELs and special education, and supporting Pre-K educators who serve Multilingual Learners. Cristina has taught at the elementary, middle school and university levels in the US and Mexico. At present, Cristina teaches graduate courses in the areas of Bilingualism and Reading, Assessment, and Foundations of Language Minority Education. Cristina has been working extensively with her colleague, Theresa Young (Speech-Language Pathologist, Ontario, Canada) collaborating with school problem-solving teams as they develop more culturally and linguistically responsive learning environments for diverse learners. Cristina co-authored the book: Special Education Considerations for English Language Learners: Delivering a continuum of services (Caslon Publishing, 2nd edition January 2013), and is co-authoring a forthcoming book in the Oxford University Press Key Concepts series: Focus on Special Educational Needs (Oxford University Press, 2018), as well as various articles and chapters on addressing the needs of culturally and linguistically diverse learners. Cristina and her husband have raised their daughter bilingually.
Video: See more from Cristina in our archived Facebook Live event on special education and ELLs!
Books by This Author
Special Education Considerations for Multilingual Learners: Delivering a Continuum of Services (3rd Edition)
Multilingual learners in Grades K–12 are often overidentified or underidentified for special education. The third edition of this groundbreaking text offers a better way to meet the needs of multilingual learners: by creating a culturally and linguistically responsive multi-tiered system of support (MTSS) and implementing a continuum of services that meets the needs of the whole child. Chapters have been fully updated to reflect the latest best practices and reorganized to better align with MTSS.