The busy month of October is upon us now. It seems like the summer is now a distant memory as we are all into “school mode”. Students are getting used to their new teachers, schedules and classmates and adjusting to the stresses associated with change to new people and environments puts on them.  In this blog I want to talk about a segment of students receiving special education programs and services that is growing, but often not talked about.  This group are English Language Learners (ELL) students with special education needs. 

The reason that I have thought a lot about these students lately is that Canada is a country of immigrants. Ontario is the province where most immigrants choose to settle. In particular, in the Greater Toronto Area over half of the population comes from other countries.  The fact is that some English language learners have Special Education needs. They are as likely as any other student to have Autism or a speech language disorder, etc. Here are some tips to help support ELL students with special education needs:

1.     ELL students with exceptionalities need to be identified as soon as possible. This is needed to ensure that an appropriate program and placement can be arranged. Ongoing consultation with parents and other school staff including the classroom teacher, English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher, the Special Education teacher, etc. needs to be established as supports for learning are being considered.

2.     Take an individualized approach with each student you may suspect of having special education needs. The same behaviours in one student may have a different cause than for another. This is especially true in the case of ELL students. The first step is a careful observation, over time, of what they can do in a variety of classroom activities and settings.

3.     Before referring an ELL with potential special education needs for a psychological assessment. The following four areas need to be focussed on: a review of student information; a focus on interpersonal skills; the collection of information from a various sources and the consideration of academic progress.

4.     If you are conducting assessments to determine if the student has an exceptionality, assessments should be administered in the student’s dominant language or with the assistance of a bilingual educator, whenever possible. Assessors should use more than one instrument or set of instruments in considering the learning characteristics and describing the performance of English language learners.

5.     Be careful with using tests, including some psycho-educational assessments, to assess whether the student has special education needs. These tests may not bring accurate results since other factors like the familiarity with the vocabulary of the test or culturally specific content could interfere with a student’s ability to answer correctly.

6.     In assessing the student’s potential special education needs, be sure to include feedback from all staff who has worked with the student. This will assist the Identification, Placement and Review Committee (IPRC) in its determination about the special education needs of the student.  

7.     When developing an Individual Education Plan (IEP) for an English language learner it needs to take into consideration both the needs related to language learning and the needs related to the student’s exceptionality. However, an IEP is a document to support the special education needs that exist for the student. It is not a document to describe strategies for the development of English language proficiency.  

The best tip I can give above all is to look at each ELL student as an individual when evaluating their need for special education programs and services. 

Crawford Dedman

Special Education Consultant

www.challengingminds.com