Documented Disability
The easiest way to determine whether your ESL student has a learning disability is if there is a documented disability in their first language. This means that the student was formally tested and based on the results, the student was identified as having a language or learning disability. If a student has a documented disability in their first language, then they should already be receiving special education services. A documented disability means that the student’s difficulty in learning is due to an overall language or learning disability. Their learning difficulties are not solely due to learning the English language.
Assessing the Student in their Native Language
The best way to determine whether your ESL student’s difficulty in learning is due to language or learning a second language is by assessing the student in their first language or in their stronger language. By assessing the student in their first language or stronger language, you are eliminating the possibility that the student’s learning difficulties are solely due to learning English. Assessing the student in their native language should be done if the student has had prior educational experiences in their native language. For example, if the student never learned to read or write in their native language, then this student’s reading and writing skills should not be assessed in their first language.
Informal Assessments
What do school districts do if it is not possible to test the student in their native language?
One solution could be to undergo an informal assessment by a teacher who speaks the language of the student who needs to be assessed. In addition, meeting with the parents or guardians to obtain information about the student’s first language skills is critical. If the parents report that their child makes errors in their first language atypical of their same aged peers who share the same first language, culture, and educational experiences, then the student’s difficulty in learning may be due to an overall language difficulty. I stressed the word atypical because if all children make the same language errors in the student’s native language, then the errors are natural, developmental errors and are not a concern.
Also, if parents report that their child had difficulty learning in their native language and country, then this is evidence that the child may have a learning disability.
My Personal Experience:
I previously wrote about a student who has a documented disability in reading. During the conference with the student’s parents, the student’s father stated that he had much difficulty reading Spanish in school in his native country of Mexico. This was a helpful piece of information that was added to our other data in determining whether or not this ESL student has a reading disability.I taught two twin girls who came from Macedonia. One of the girls learned English typically of most ESL students, but the other twin had difficulty and made significantly less progress. Because both students came from the same background (language, culture, educational experiences), it was easier for me to differentiate whether her learning difficulties were due to the English language or a learning disability in her first language.