Special Education Services: A Manual of Policies, Procedures and Guidelines

C.7 Students with Different Cultural or Linguistic Backgrounds

Learning another language and new cultural norms, adjusting to a different social and physical setting, or overcoming homesickness or trauma can affect a student's school adjustment and learning. These factors, when combined with a disability or impairment, can significantly undermine school achievement. Assessing and planning for students with special needs becomes more complex when language, cultural or migration factors are involved.

Except for cases of obvious disability (e.g., profound intellectual disability, physical or sensory disability), teachers should fully consider cultural, linguistic and/or experiential factors that can affect learning before assuming the presence of a disability or impairment. Consideration should be given to prior educational experience, and the student should be allowed sufficient time for second-language learning and social adjustment. Students may need additional support for language development, and academic upgrading (e.g., math), or assistance with social integration, without necessarily presenting with a disability.

When assessing and planning for students with special needs with different cultural or linguistic backgrounds, teachers should:

• communicate with the parents regarding the student's progress and discuss the factors which may be affecting learning. It is important to obtain a developmental and educational history, and parental perceptions and expectations regarding schooling.
• when language is a barrier, use an interpreter for communicating with the parent or the student to assist with meetings, assessments and planning sessions. The interpreter should be an adult who is familiar with the language and the culture of the parents and student.
• Request testing of the student's vision and hearing, and, if appropriate, a medical examination. Examiners should be alerted to cultural, linguistic or experiential factors.
• be aware of and sensitive to cultural factors that may influence the relationship between the teacher and parents, the developmental and educational expectations as well as parental beliefs about special needs.

Use of Standardized Assessments
When formal assessments are carried out, it is important that care be taken in the selection and administration of tests to minimize the impact of the test's cultural and linguistic biases. Interpretation of assessment results should fully consider the linguistic, cultural and experiential factors, as well as the tests' referent populations.

An interpreter can be helpful in obtaining an estimate of the student's language competencies in her/his mother tongue, and with some aspects of the assessment (e.g., establishing rapport, explaining purpose and procedures). The translations of instructions for some assessment tasks, particularly non-verbal tasks, may be appropriate. However, it is usually not appropriate to translate verbal test items with the intent of using the test's standardization norms.

Use of educational and psychological tests with students from cultural and linguistic backgrounds different from the group on which the test was normed should reference the most current edition of Standards for Educational and Psychological Testing - "Standards for Particular Applications" - a joint publication of the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association, and the National Council on Measurement in Education.

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