ELLs & Special Education

One of the most challenging and pressing issues we face as bilingual educators committed to helping every ELL be as successful as they possible can is that of how to best serve English Language Learners with learning disabilities.  Whenever I reflect on this topic I think about my sweet third grade student Miguel (name changed) who was learning English as a second language, was a year older than his peers and yet grade levels behind, was placed in Special Ed due to a severe learning disability that evidenced itself most fully in reading and writing, and came from an incredibly impoverished single parent home.  This little boy faced a number of challenges, and though I worked very hard to understand his learning disability and to understand how his language needs, learning needs, and social-emotional needs were alike, different, etc, I still reflect on my two years teaching Miguel and feel like there was so much more I could have done.

I also think of Kaylee, Jose, and several other students I've taught who were English Language Learners and learning disabled.   Some I taught while in a 50/50 or 90/10 dual immersion setting, others in an English immersion environment.  All struggled tremendously--mostly because I wasn't very well equipped to meet their unique needs.  As committed bilingual educators, the more we can learn about serving our special needs ELLs, the higher the chances they'll be able to reach their full academic potential.

Check out this video webcast with Dr. Elsa Cárdenas-Hagan who discusses effective assessment and instructional strategies for English Language Learners with disabilities.  Dr. Cárdenas-Hagan developed the Esperanza Spanish reading and writing program and runs a bilingual speech pathology center down here in Brownsville.



The resources about ELLs and Special Ed are few and far between.  I have reached out to Francisco Najera with a question or two before--he is the faculty director of the Bank Street College of Education's program in Dual Language/Bilingual Special Education.  George Washington University's website reports that there are only eight graduate programs in the country "that prepare educators to meet the cultural, language, social and learning needs of a growing number of culturally and linguistically diverse, and/or exceptional students." 

Here are a few more resources I've stumbled upon:

• Bilingual Special Ed, ERIC digest
• Blog: Effective Practices in Bilingualism & Special Ed
• Bilingual Students with Disabilities get Special Help: How a school in NV does it
• Book:  The Bilingual Special Education Interface
• MA's SIG for Bilingual Special Education (also scroll down for links to add'l resources)
• Bilingual Special Education resources for purchase
• ELLs with Special Needs: Effective Instructional Strategies (CAL Digest)
• Empowering Culturally & Linguistically Diverse Students with Learning Problems (by Jim Cummins; ERIC Digest)  This digest is based on A Theoretical Framework for Bilingual Special Education by Jim Cummins (Exceptional Children, October 9, Vol. 56, No. 2, pp. 111-119. EJ 399079).