NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LEARNING DISABILITIES\
IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

OCTOBER 14-15, 2003

SYMPOSIUM SUMMARY

![](media/image1.png){width="3.001388888888889in"
height="3.001388888888889in"}

**U.S. Department of Education**

**Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services**

**Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and
Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students**

NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LEARNING DISABILITIES IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

OCTOBER 14-15, 2003

SYMPOSIUM SUMMARY

WORKSHOP ORGANIZING SPONSORS:

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and\
Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students

***U.S. Department of Education***

National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, National
Institutes of Health

***U.S. Department of Health and Human Services***

OTHER WORKSHOP SPONSORS:

American Federation of Teachers

American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Council for Exceptional Children

International Dyslexia Association

International Reading Association

National Center for Learning Disabilities

National Education Association

National Institute for Literacy

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height="1.2472222222222222in"}

***The statements, conclusions and recommendations contained in this
document reflect both individual and collective opinions of the
symposium participants and are not intended to represent the official
position of the U.S. Department of Education, the Department of Health
and Human Services, or the National Institutes of Health, nor are they
intended to represent the official positions of any of the workshop
cosponsors.***

This report was produced under the U.S. Department of Education Contract
No. ED-03-PO-2945 with Rose Li and Associates, Inc. The statements,
conclusions and recommendations contained in this document reflect both
individual and collective opinions of the symposium participants and are
not intended to represent the official position of the U.S. Department
of Education, the Department of Health and Human Services, or the
National Institutes of Health, nor are they intended to represent the
official positions of any of the workshop cosponsors.

U.S. Department of Education

Rod Paige

*Secretary*

Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

Troy Justesen

*Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary*

**Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement and\
Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students**

Maria Hernandez Ferrier

*Deputy Under Secretary*

August 2004

This report is in the public domain. Authorization to reproduce it in
whole or in part is granted. While permission to reprint this
publication is not necessary, the citation should be: U.S. Department of
Education, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services,
Office of the Assistant Secretary, *National Symposium on Learning
Disabilities in English Language Learners, October 14-15, 2003:
Symposium Summary*, Washington, D.C., 2004.

To order copies of this report,

This report is available on the Department's Web site at
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/osers/products/ld-ell/index.html,\
and at http://www.ncela.gwu.edu/oela/index.htm.

On request, this publication is available in alternate formats, such as
Braille, large print, or computer diskette. For more information, please
contact the Department's Alternate Format Center at (202) 260‑9895 or
(202) 205‑8113.

[Executive Summary v](#executive-summary)

[I. Introduction 1](#i.-introduction)

[II. The Big Picture: Who and Why? 2](#ii.-the-big-picture-who-and-why)

[III. Issues in ELL Measurement and Assessment
7](#iii.-issues-in-ell-measurement-and-assessment)

[IV. Cultural Aspects of Assessment
11](#iv.-cultural-aspects-of-assessment)

[V. Assessment and Measurement Instruments to Detect and Predict
Problems
14](#v.-assessment-and-measurement-instruments-to-detect-and-predict-problems)

[VI. Neuroimaging 18](#vi.-neuroimaging)

[VII. Use of Technology in the Assessment and Screening and Support for
LD Students Learning English as an Additional Language: Perspective from
the United Kingdom
21](#vii.-use-of-technology-in-the-assessment-and-screening-and-support-for-ld-students-learning-english-as-an-additional-language-perspective-from-the-united-kingdom)

[VIII. Small Working Group Reports
22](#viii.-small-working-group-reports)

[IX. Summary 25](#ix.-summary)

[Appendix A: Biosketches of Presenters
27](#appendix-a-biosketches-of-presenters)

[Appendix B: Symposium Participants
33](#appendix-b-symposium-participants)

[List of Acronyms 35](#list-of-acronyms)

NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LEARNING DISABILITIES\
IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

# Executive Summary

Research on bilingual and multilingual learning in the United States has
not kept pace with the increasing growth of our culturally and
linguistically diverse population. Nearly one in five Americans speaks a
language other than English at home, and almost 45 percent of U.S.
teachers have at least one student with limited English proficiency in
their classrooms. Schools are striving to meet the mandate of leaving no
child behind, despite the challenges associated with teaching students
from multiple cultural, linguistic, and experiential backgrounds,
including those who are new to the English language, or English language
learners (ELL). Additionally, there is the responsibility of determining
whether a student's academic difficulties stem from learning a second
language or from the presence of a learning disability, or from both.
There is widespread anecdotal evidence suggesting that ELLs may be
either bypassed for consideration as a child with a disability because
teachers assume the child is not achieving solely because of his or her
language difference, *or* over-represented on special education rosters
due to inappropriate placement based upon inaccurate measures and
ill-conceived procedures.

In response to these concerns, three federal agencies jointly organized
a National Symposium on Learning Disabilities in English Language
Learners, held Oct. 14-15, 2003, in Washington, D.C. The goal of this
symposium was to determine how best to apply knowledge about identifying
and assessing learning disabilities in native English-speaking students
to the identification and assessment of learning disabilities in ELLs.
In addition, symposium participants discussed ways to distinguish
between actual learning disabilities and the challenges associated with
learning a new language. Researchers, practitioners, and policymakers
from around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the United Kingdom
joined forces to shape a research agenda that promotes evidence-based
practices; is germane to educators; supports the development of valid
screening and assessment instruments; and incorporates relevant
neurological, cognitive, and linguistic factors.

## Key Themes in Workshop Recommendations

Several key themes emerged from the two-day symposium. Participants
reinforced the need for stronger theoretical models, better
identification and assessment tools, and more consistent terminology.
The lack of common terminology, definitions, and models is a hindrance
to further research. It is also important to develop a greater
understanding of language and literacy development trajectories, as well
as the individual and contextual factors that affect education outcomes,
including intersections with neurobiology. It was recognized that
cross-sectional and smaller studies are needed, in addition to large,
longitudinal studies, and that these studies could be undertaken
concurrently, especially in school settings.

Cultural competence must be developed among researchers, teachers, and
clinicians to address the myriad cultural and other factors that may
limit language acquisition and school success among ELLs. Because ELLs
encompass a broad range of backgrounds, abilities, and needs,
participants advocated for an expansive or inclusive definition of
"ELL." These students, like all children, should be viewed from a
holistic perspective, not from a "deficit" model. Research goals should
include identification and understanding of their adaptive skills, their
non-linguistic skills, and their potential under optimal conditions.

## 1. Identification and Assessment of Learning Disabilities (LD) in ELLs

**Examine the identification, classification, and definition of LD in
ELLs.** Classification research for ELLs with LD is needed and should
replicate the LD classification and identification studies that have
been conducted with monolingual students. The study design should be
cross-sectional, with sampling at multiple points on the continuum of
development. It also should sample students from the lower end of
achievement while more restrictively sampling those from the normative
range of achievement for comparison purposes. Data from both
cross-sectional and longitudinal studies are needed in order to develop
a classification system or model that would provide developmental
benchmarks and simplify identification of ELLs with learning
disabilities (ELL/Ds). It is also important to develop identification
strategies that would improve understanding of the co-morbidities for
such conditions as Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), but
would exclude neurological problems and severe emotional disturbances.

**Develop better assessment tools.** Assessment tools are needed for
research, in order to accurately and validly measure student and teacher
behaviors, and interactions, as well as the contexts of school,
community, and home. In addition, new, accurate, and user-friendly
assessment tools must be developed that will help teachers identify
language, literacy, and academic competencies in ELLs. There is also a
need for diagnostic screening tools specifically designed for ELLs who
are at risk for learning disabilities. Appropriate accommodations for
standardized accountability assessments need to be identified, and
research is needed to provide evidence indicating when such assessments
are appropriate and how well they work. Assessments should be developed
that will provide an indication of the linguistic, cognitive, and social
skills an ELL will need in order to succeed in U.S. educational
settings.

**Explore benefits of using technology in assessment.** Readily
available and relatively inexpensive access to computers can link
linguistically isolated students with assessors and clinicians who can
help them. In addition, computers could be used to provide home-language
instruction and support to students when no native speakers are
available in person to provide such support. It is important to explore
new software programs that could reduce the cost associated with
assessment and language support.

## 2. Normal Language and Literacy Developmental Trajectories for ELLs

**Contrast ELL-LDs with normative ELL developmental trajectories.** The
nature and process of English language acquisition for ELLs must be more
fully understood before ELL/Ds can be reliably identified. More research
is needed in the area of normal language and literacy development among
monolinguals, bilinguals, and ELLs, as well as research about the
relationship between language development and learning disabilities
among both monolinguals and ELLs.

**Identify impediments to normal development for those who are not
disabled.** Many ELLs are failing school in the United States, even
though most of them are not learning disabled. The most effective
methods for identifying the social, cultural, emotional, instructional,
and other issues that impede normal development for ELLs without
disabilities must be identified.

**Initiate longitudinal studies with multiple cohorts, selected at
different points on the developmental continuum.** Ultimately,
comprehensive longitudinal studies are needed of ELLs, focusing upon the
interactions and interrelationships among the child, his/her culture(s),
his/her linguistic abilities, and the child's home and school
environments. Such research will help to predict outcomes and identify
which characteristics and conditions are likely (or unlikely) to produce
success in learning. At a minimum, any study of academic achievement and
English language acquisition among ELLs should include the following
variables: identification of first language, proficiency in first
language, type of school instruction received (bilingual, English as a
Second Language \[ESL\], or general education), language of instruction,
observation of instruction, age of the child, language used at home, and
specific education outcomes.

## 3. Individual and Contextual Factors Affecting ELL and ELL/D Outcomes

**Identify salient cultural variables.** Research is needed to
understand which cultural variables among ELLs correlate to positive or
negative educational outcomes. In particular, symposium participants
emphasized the need to examine the role of cultural and linguistic
factors in the development of American Indian, Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian children; currently, there is a dearth of research on these
populations. Within the American Indian, Alaska Native and Native
Hawaiian communities, two major interests are (1) the continued
development of a given nation's language and cultural base as part of
the children's heritage, and (2) the relationship of these priorities to
each child's cognitive development and academic performance.

**Study the role of affective and motivational factors.** It is
important to understand the roles of affective and motivational factors
in academic outcomes for ELLs. What are the roles of parents and family
(siblings, grandparents, and extended family), the home environment, and
parents' access to information about their child's academic progress?

**Place greater emphasis on first language research.** Despite the
difficulty in studying ELLs' first languages, due to the quantity and
diversity of these languages (necessitating a broad sampling for
statistical significance), theoretical models must be developed to
examine not only a child's English competency, but also his or her first
language abilities. Where possible, those languages that can show
generalizable patterns for ELLs should be strategically selected in
order to develop assessments and interventions that might be useful in
multilingual classrooms. Research should seek to identify the conditions
under which children are most likely to succeed, and based upon these,
interventions may be considered in the first language and in English.
Intervention in the first language is not always necessary, but it is
important to know when and under what conditions it might be
advantageous.

**Identify school infrastructure factors.** It is important to study the
quality of instruction, the language of instruction, the types of
academic and language support available within a child's school, and the
efficacy of that support. Do particular school infrastructure factors
contribute to successful educational outcomes for ELLs? The most
effective types of school structure and support systems for ELLs (i.e.,
not just curricula and programs) must be identified, and the
characteristics of those students for whom these structures or programs
work optimally defined. How do environmental factors in and around a
school affect ELLs' outcomes? Since there are so many variations among
school environments, it will be necessary to design the research
carefully and use a large sample in order to derive generalizable
conclusions.

## 4. Neurobiology

**Apply neurobiology to the study of language and literacy development
in ELLs.** The neurobiological signature (as reflected by functional
neuroimaging) of reading disabilities and the neurodevelopmental
trajectories associated with successful reading acquisition are likely
to be similar between children who are English language learners and
those who are monolinguals. The application of neurobiology to language
and literacy development is only at the earliest stages, but it holds
great promise for new insights about ELLs, children with LD, and those
with normal language development. New functional neuroimaging technology
has the potential to provide valuable information about the
neurobiological bases for language representation in bilinguals,
especially in relation to the age at which a child acquires a second
language and whether the acquisition of languages is sequential or
simultaneous.

**Pursue development of normative data for sequential and concurrent
acquisition of first, second, and subsequent languages.** The logical
next steps for functional neuroimaging research include developing
normative data on spatial-temporal brain activation profiles for various
language tasks, in both the first language and additional languages;
developing norms for second (or subsequent) language development at
successive stages of acquisition for both simultaneous and sequential
acquisition; comparing profiles of each constituent operation for first
language and second or additional languages; identifying the
neurological operations that generate differences between first language
and second or additional language profiles; and discovering whether
aberrant profiles correspond to particular behavioral or psychological
deficits or strengths.

## 5. Effective Interventions

It is crucial that any effort in this area include (1) demonstrating
which interventions are effective, (2) determining the factors that
enhance or reduce an intervention's effectiveness, and (3) identifying
the types of children for whom particular interventions are most
effective. Such research will help to accurately and specifically
identify those with various types of learning difficulties. Teachers
must not be ignored when collecting data; research should take into
account a teacher's knowledge about what works in helping all children
learn and their skills in accomplishing that, as well as the requisite
linguistic abilities and cultural knowledge a teacher needs in order to
engage specific groups and subgroups of children (with and without
learning difficulties). Factoring in a teacher's capabilities is as
important as knowing which methods and approaches will work, with which
children, and in which classroom settings.

**Evaluate the efficacy of interventions for ELLs.** The efficacy of
current clinical and classroom interventions for bilingual,
multilingual, and ELLs with learning disabilities must be evaluated. Are
the current, research-based instructional programs for monolinguals
effective when used with ELLs? What modifications or adaptations are
needed, and do these vary by first language or language type? Do
students with disorders of basic psychological processes respond
differently to intervention than do those without such disorders? For
example, would a dyslexic ELL manifest different symptoms from an ELL
who is not learning simply because of language differences or due to
inadequate instruction? As new interventions and instructional
approaches are developed for ELLs, all must be evaluated for
effectiveness.

**Identify effective factors in teacher training programs for working
with ELLs.** It is important to (1) develop effective classroom
instruction approaches that best prepare teachers to help ELLs and
ELL/Ds, and then (2) identify the components of effective pre-service
and in-service teacher training, to ensure that teachers have mastered
these approaches. What skill sets best equip teachers to engage ELLs in
the educational process? What should teachers know, linguistically and
culturally, that will best prepare them to deal with a diverse group of
students?

**Translate classification and intervention to diagnosis and
treatment.** Real progress will depend upon the ability to apply what is
learned from classification and intervention research to the
identification and treatment of ELLs with learning disabilities. In
order for this to occur, such research must (1) study classroom
interventions, (2) monitor implementation, (3) consider and justify
control alternatives, and (4) assess and analyze errors made by children
in the course of various assessments. Research on assessment,
identification of learning difficulties, and intervention development
and effectiveness studies should be planned with real world applications
in mind.

NATIONAL SYMPOSIUM ON LEARNING DISABILITIES\
IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE LEARNERS

[Washington, D.C.]{.smallcaps}

[October 14-15, 2003]{.smallcaps}

# I. Introduction

The population of children in the United States who are under 18 years
of age is becoming increasingly diverse, both culturally and
linguistically. Since 1980, the percentage of Hispanic children has
increased from 9 to 16 percent of the total population, and the
percentage of Asian and Pacific Islander children has doubled, from 2 to
4 percent. By 2020, one in five children is projected to be
Hispanic.[^1]

In the year 2000, 46.9 million, or nearly 20 percent of people five
years old and older, spoke a language other than English at home, up
from 14 percent in 1990. The proportion of people reporting that they
spoke English less than "very well" also increased from 6 percent in
1990 to slightly over 8 percent in 2000. Based on information from the
Center for Research on Education, Diversity and Excellence, by the year
2030, students whose first language is not English will make up an
estimated 40 percent of the K-12 student population in the United
States.

The increase in cultural and linguistic diversity among students has
been paralleled by an increase in special education enrollment. However,
there is a puzzling paradox in the data. There is widespread, informal
evidence that English language learners may be inappropriately bypassed
for consideration as children with a disability because teachers assume
that the child is not achieving solely because of his or her language
difference. Alternatively, other evidence suggests that ELLs may be
over-represented on special education rosters due to inappropriate
placements based upon inaccurate measures and ill-conceived
procedures.[^2] With the increasing growth of the culturally and
linguistically diverse ELLs, our schools are challenged to ensure that
the educational needs of all students are met.

To address the challenges of identifying, assessing, and measuring ELLs
in the U.S. education system, the U.S. Department of Education's Office
of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Office
of English Language Acquisition (OELA), in conjunction with the National
Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) of the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services (HHS), sponsored a National Symposium on Learning Disabilities
in English Language Learners, which was held Oct. 14-15, 2003, in
Washington, D.C. Leading researchers, along with selected practitioners
and policymakers from around the United States, Canada, Mexico, and the
United Kingdom shared their expertise, experiences, and ideas about
assessing learning disabilities in students whose first language is not
English. (See appendix A for the biosketches of presenters and appendix
B for the list of symposium participants.)

The symposium goal was to discuss strategies for applying existing
knowledge about identifying and assessing learning disabilities in
native English-speaking students to the identification and assessment of
learning disabilities in ELLs. Another goal was to distinguish between
actual learning disabilities and the challenges associated with learning
a new language. The presentations and discussions were designed to help
develop a research agenda that will lead to the development of
evidence-based practices for instructing and intervening in the
education of ELLs with learning disabilities, valid screening and
assessment instruments, and interventions that take into account
relevant neurological, cognitive, cultural and linguistic factors.

In their introductory remarks, Maria Hernandez-Ferrier and Joan
Mele-McCarthy, representing OELA and OSERS respectively, underscored
their Department's commitment to addressing the needs of ELL students.
Both offices are determined to leave no ELLs behind, and they understand
the advantages of promoting international collaborations in order to
gain important insights. The NICHD representative, Peggy McCardle, also
welcomed participants and described the organizers' intentions to
promote a respectful, peaceable exchange, in which disagreements could
be discussed in a safe environment.

# II. The Big Picture: Who and Why?

## A. Over- and Under-Referral of English Language Learners for Special Education Programs

Timothy E. D'Emilio, Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA)

Timothy D'Emilio began the symposium by presenting powerful statistics
about the growing number of ELLs in the United States. According to the
2000 census, nearly one in five Americans speaks a language other than
English at home ― a surge of nearly 50 percent in the past decade, which
has been reflected to a magnified degree in our schools. In 1992, 15
percent of U.S. teachers were estimated to have at least one ELL in
their respective classrooms. Ten years later, in 2002, the percentage of
U.S. teachers who had at least one ELL increased to 43 percent.[^3]

To date, little has been published regarding the representation and
characteristics of ELLs in special education programs (ELL/Ds).
Recently, the OELA funded an in-depth study to look at the "state of the
ELLs" in America's public schools and to shed light upon the issues that
ELLs encounter, especially when these students also are identified as
having disabilities. For the first National Symposium, OELA drew
identification data from two very different research projects: the OELA
*Descriptive Study of Services to Limited English Proficient (LEP)
Students and LEP Students with Disabilities*, and the Office for Civil
Rights' (OCR) *2000 Elementary and Secondary School Civil Rights
Compliance Report* (or, the OCR Survey).[^4]

The two studies combine their different strengths and limitations to
present a rough depiction of ELL/Ds in U.S. public schools. The OELA
Descriptive Study was conducted in the winter and spring of 2002. The
project collected data on ELLs characteristics and services (i.e.,
curricular alignment, test inclusion, teacher qualifications) through
on-site data collection and interviews, as well as case study
observations. This rich source of data was based upon a nationally
representative sample of schools and school districts across the nation
reporting the enrollment of at least one ELL. In contrast, the OCR
Survey was a virtual census of all of the nation's 95,000 K--12 public
schools. Although the survey gathered answers to only 12 questions on
ELLs, five of which were on ELL/Ds, the information can be disaggregated
by school, district, or state.

**Data Accessibility**: Reporting on findings from OELA's Descriptive
Study, D'Emilio noted that data obtained on ELL/D students were not
easily available. Most districts lacked a formal process for identifying
and distinguishing between ELLs and ELL/Ds. District personnel
repeatedly expressed frustration at not having the tools, procedures, or
qualified staff to make these distinctions. OELA extended the budget and
timeframe to overcome these difficulties and obtain viable response
rates.

**Current Identification Procedures**: In 70 percent of the 1,315
participating school districts, the routine procedure was to identify
struggling ELLs as ELLs first, before they are identified as students
with disabilities. In 13 percent of districts, it is estimated that
students are typically identified for both ELL and ELL/D services, and
in no consistent order in 14 percent of districts. In 2.6 percent of the
districts, students routinely were identified for ELL/D services first.
This variation in procedures affects the ability to accurately estimate
the number of ELL/Ds.

**National-Level ELL/D Estimates:** Based on data from the OELA Study,
it is estimated that there were 357,300 students in K--12 identified as
ELL/D during the 2001-02 school year. This represents 9 percent of all
ELLs in U.S. public schools across all grade levels, and 8 percent of
all children in special education. *(See discussion in Identification
Rates, below.)*

**District-Level ELL/D Estimates**: A large percentage of the ELL/Ds in
the student population are enrolled in a very small number of districts.
District-level estimates indicate that ELL/Ds were enrolled in more than
62 percent of approximately 6,500 school districts reporting at least
one ELL in 2002. A solid majority of the districts (55 percent) are
estimated to have 10 or fewer ELL/Ds. About 3 percent of the districts
estimated 500 or more ELL/Ds. In other words, future studies on ELL/Ds
could be budgeted to focus on fewer than 200 school districts.

**School-Level ELL/D Estimates**: As with districts, a large percentage
of the ELL/Ds in the student population are enrolled in a very small
number of schools. School-level estimates indicate that ELLs were
enrolled in 45,300 schools, and ELL/Ds were enrolled in 33,700 of those
schools (73 percent). Sixty-two percent of schools enrolling ELL/Ds had
fewer than 10 ELL/Ds, while nearly 6 percent had 40 or more ELL/Ds.

**Identification Rates**: A smaller proportion of ELLs, compared to
students in general, were identified for special education services.
Both the OELA Descriptive Study and the OCR Survey put the estimate of
all students referred to special education at around 13.5 percent, and
the number of ELL/Ds at approximately 9.2 percent. Smaller proportions
of ELLs than of students in general were identified for each of the
special education disability categories. (Note, however, the OCR Survey
indicates that these proportions vary widely across the states.) Three
possible explanations need to be investigated: (1) ELLs may be
under-identified nationally as needing special education services; (2)
ELLs in special education programs may not be identified as both ELLs
and ELL/Ds in district records, but only as ELLs; and (3) There actually
may be a lower disability rate among those identified as ELLs.

**Disability Classifications:** The category of "specific learning
disability" comprises 56 percent of ELL/Ds. The next most common
classifications for ELL/Ds were speech/language impairments (24
percent), mental retardation (8 percent), and emotional disturbance (2
percent).

**Service Provision**: ELL/Ds were less likely than ELLs in general to
receive any ELL services. Services were generally provided entirely in
English for more than 56 percent of the ELL/Ds in every special
education category. Indicators of adequate coordination between Special
Education (SPED) and Limited English Proficient (LEP) services were
mixed.

**Discussion on Delayed Services**: Students who enter the public school
system speaking a language other than English must be assessed for
English language proficiency. If they are identified as ELLs or LEP,
they then are recommended for placement in a language program to learn
both academic content and the English language. Typically, students are
reclassified from ELL status in about three years. However, some ELLs
struggle more than others, either in the acquisition of the language or
in mastery of academic content, and do not show typical levels of
progress. This delay in learning may concern the teacher, but it was
reported that teachers often attribute the slower progress to second
language learning instead of to a disability. In some school districts,
if ELLs continue to have difficulty with English and subject-matter
achievement beyond the three-year reclassification mark, they are
referred to SPED for further assessment and services. For students who
enter the U.S. public school system in first or second grade, the
referral for special education services may not occur until the middle
elementary grades (4--6).

**Priority Areas for the Provision of Services**: Challenges to
correcting the situation for ELL/Ds include the lack of qualified
teachers and specialists who are trained to work with ELL/Ds, as well as
the low percentage of training dedicated to ELL/D programs. In addition,
teacher training and instruction methods for effectively serving ELL/Ds,
and assessment tools for ELL/Ds often do not align with state standards
for classroom content and student achievement.

D'Emilio closed his presentation with three considerations for planning
research studies of ELL/D students:

1)  It may be difficult to collect data on ELL/Ds. In the 2001-02 school
    year, no data systems required districts to record statistics for
    ELL/Ds. Fortunately, the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) is expected
    to improve data collection, including the process of recording
    statistics on ELL/Ds, as states move toward student-level
    accountability systems.

2)  While a large percentage of the ELL/Ds are enrolled in a very small
    number of districts and schools, researchers must be prepared to
    compete for approval to conduct research in large districts. This
    has become an increasingly difficult and multi-layered task (e.g.,
    in the Los Angeles Unified School District, approval is required
    from three distinct levels of government).

3)  Researchers intending to investigate this topic should be aware
    that, in general, district and school personnel responsible for
    ELL/Ds are trying to compensate for the lack of specifically trained
    personnel by reaching out to specialists and community resources to
    create a team approach and improve the identification and placement
    of ELLs in special education. Some districts report that they
    recognize that the identification process should include input from
    persons who are familiar with the students' language and culture.
    The research community must be able to demonstrate its capability to
    work with local resources in order to obtain accurate information
    about ELL/Ds.

## B. Assessment of English Proficiency for Children Learning English as a Second Language

Gail McKoon, Ph.D., Ohio State University

Gail McKoon described some of the ongoing findings from the National
Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, a panel
commissioned by the Department of Education. Originally, a part of the
panel's mission was to evaluate, on the basis of empirical, scientific
research, the quality of the literacy assessments used with language
minority children, including children with disabilities, and the
appropriateness with which the assessments are used. However, the most
salient finding from a review of the last 20 years of empirical studies
is that the studies are inadequate in the area of assessment: they
cannot support evaluations of the quality, reliability, or cultural
appropriateness of currently available assessment instruments. The lack
of research findings points to an urgent need for both researchers and
government agencies to make a concerted effort to initiate high-quality
studies that identify how best to assess language minority children's
language proficiency and literacy.

McKoon identified several problems with the reviewed studies:

1)  Even widely used, standardized measures have not been rigorously and
    thoroughly studied for their validity or reliability with language
    minority children.

2)  Many of the reviewed studies involved so few subjects, or examined
    so few items, that it is impossible to generalize the findings.

3)  There is no programmatic or systematic buildup of research findings.

4)  For many studies, the conclusions cannot be evaluated, because the
    items used in the studies' assessment instruments are not available.
    The number of variables that are potentially relevant to the
    acquisition of English skills is extremely large. Researchers
    consistently have failed to describe their test items in terms even
    of an acceptable subset of these variables. The items themselves are
    not included in the published articles, so independent evaluation is
    not possible. Without the items, there can be no replication by
    other researchers, which is an essential aspect of building
    systematic, high-quality research.

5)  Most studies have been conducted without necessary and relevant
    expertise from other disciplines, especially linguistics and
    cognitive psychology. Current research from these fields indicates
    that most, if not all, of the language assessment instruments
    currently available are, at best, only weakly valid indicators of
    language skills and abilities, even when they were developed for and
    used to test monolingual (English) children. Moreover, research in
    these fields has enumerated a host of subtle, across-language
    differences in how proficient native speakers use their own
    language. Almost none of these were taken into account when
    developing assessment instruments. It should be stressed that many
    of these subtle, across-language differences are not apparent to
    untrained native speakers, nor are they evident to researchers
    without relevant linguistic expertise.

McKoon illustrated the need for linguistic expertise by referring to a
study aimed at identifying bilingual language minority children with
speech disorders in language production.[^5] To distinguish these
children, their language-production abilities were compared to the
abilities of children without learning disabilities, both bilingual and
monolingual, in both their first language and English. The comparison
was carried out with a test in which the children were asked to name
aloud pictured objects. A full comparison required that the words to be
spoken capture a range of similarities and differences in the
phonological and word structures of the first language and English; word
lists therefore were constructed only after a careful linguistic
investigation of the similarities and differences in fluent adult
speech.

The results of this study indicate the importance of (1) measuring
language structures both in a child's first language and in English, and
(2) comparing them to the structures of fluent monolingual children. For
non-learning disabled bilingual children, the distributions of speech
errors were quite different in each of their two languages; that is, the
order of frequency in the types of errors was different in each
language. Moreover, the order of frequent errors in English among
typically developing bilingual children was different from the order for
typically developing monolingual children; in addition, the order was
different for bilingual children speaking their first language than for
monolingual children speaking their first language. These differences
showed that the bilingual children in this study had a different
structure of phonology for their first language than they did for
English, and that both of these structures were different from the
structures of monolingual children. Only in the context of these
findings, in which ELLs were compared with normally developing
monolingual children, could ELLs be identified as having disabilities.

In essence, this research suggests that accurate information can be
obtained about a child's speech production abilities only in the context
of expert linguistic knowledge, as well as of full empirical knowledge
of the relevant phonological systems. The probability with which a
possibly disabled child makes an error on a randomly chosen word cannot
be taken as a measure of his or her general ability to produce English
speech; the word might have a particularly difficult phonology in the
child's (bilingual) English phonological system. The probability with
which an error on the word is made cannot be compared directly to the
probabilities of errors for normal monolingual English children, because
the difficulty of phonological productions is ordered differently for
typically developing monolinguals than for typically developing
bilinguals.

McKoon also suggested that, when considering future research on
assessment, it is essential to separate out two types of goals: (1) to
make practical decisions, such as determining the best possible learning
environment for a child and the best possible educational practice in a
particular context; and (2) to understand exactly what an ELL child does
and does not know about English.

The reason for separating these two types of goals is pragmatic.
Ideally, research should provide a collection of assessment measures
that allow a detailed and comprehensive characterization of exactly what
an ELL knows, including knowledge of all the facets of English --- from
oral proficiency through orthographic, phonological, morphological, and
lexical knowledge, to sentence and discourse comprehension. Research
must also measure a child's knowledge of all these facets along a range
of developmental points in time and across a range of abilities and
disabilities. Such measures would enable us to develop efficient
instructional techniques, both for groups of children and for
individuals. However, it is expensive and time-consuming to develop a
large collection of demonstrably valid measures for the many aspects of
English, and to make those measures applicable across developmental and
ability levels. Such an undertaking would require multiple kinds of
expertise, and it would need to be replicated across all the minority
languages. This could not conceivably be accomplished in a short-term
timeframe.

A parallel research agenda is to explore the measures, including already
existing measures, that allow us to make accurate, practical decisions
about educational practices. It should be explicitly recognized that a
given measure may allow for accurate decisions --- for example, it may
facilitate a decision about the best placement for an individual child
--- even when that measure inaccurately reflects the child's English
abilities. That is, the link may be obscure and indirect between what
actually is being measured via a particular assessment instrument and a
child's actual English ability; nonetheless, the child's score on that
instrument still may allow his or her educators to make appropriate
decisions. Whether such instruments can be found is an open question,
and it is one that may be tractable with large-scale longitudinal
studies that include a variety of both predictor and outcome literacy
variables.

## C. Discussion

There were a number of varied questions and comments in response to the
presentations. Researchers may be tempted to rely upon the schools'
identification and referral process for information about SPED and ELLs.
However, the LD and ELL definitions and reporting requirements are not
consistent across all states. Additionally, the traditional method of
comparing a student's Intelligence Quotient (IQ) to academic achievement
identifies some, but not all, children in need of special services.
Another problem is that schools lack the relevant evidence from
research, appropriate assessment tools, and adequately trained staff
necessary to effectively attend to the needs of this population of
students.

Several participants were surprised by the recent statistics regarding
SPED-LEP students, in terms of both what was and was not reported. Some
expressed concerns about the "wait and see" approach, which often delays
identification of students in need of ELL and SPED services. There was
also concern about the lack of statistics about "former" ELLs, their
progress once they "graduated" from services, and whether many are later
reclassified as SPED (meaning that the numbers of SPED-LEP may be
initially underestimated). More research is needed regarding the
under-representation of ELLs in SPED, as well as the lack of statistics
on the number of SPED students who are not native English speakers. It
was also pointed out that rural school districts are more likely than
urban districts to classify ELLs as SPED.

# III. Issues in ELL Measurement and Assessment

The identification of LD is not a simple topic, and debate still rages
on the best definition for specific learning disabilities. Identifying
LD in ELLs is complicated by the fact that, without culturally and
linguistically appropriate assessment tools, it is difficult to
determine whether limited language ability in English is interfering
with normal learning, or is masking a learning disability. In addition,
it is unclear how specific types of learning disabilities (especially
language and reading disabilities) will manifest in different languages.
In the consideration of this topic, numerous questions were raised: Can
ELLs' linguistic precursors to reading (e.g., vocabulary, phonemic
awareness, phonological processing in alphabetic languages, etc.) be
documented, and if so, are any precursors the same for all languages? If
not, can linguistic precursors that are similar within language groups
(i.e., alphabetic vs. logographic languages) be described? Can
information-processing metrics be used to help determine whether an ELL
has an LD? Would it be valuable to include assessments of other
indicators of learning, such as working memory, speed of retrieval, or
executive function?

Panelists were asked to consider these issues by drawing upon their own
work and that of others, to address the following questions:

-   Based upon the state of the science and currently available
    assessments (including those that are recently developed or still
    under development), what are the major issues in assessing the
    language and reading development of ELLs?

-   What are the major issues regarding the development of new
    assessments for this group?

-   What are the next steps in identifying ELLs with learning
    disabilities?

## A. The Complexities of Comprehension: Assessing Comprehension in Second-Language Readers

Diane August, Ph.D., Center for Applied Linguistics

Diane August shared her research, conducted in collaboration with David
Francis at the University of Houston, on assessing comprehension in
second-language readers. In order to assess comprehension in
Spanish-speaking ELLs, it was necessary to first develop an assessment
of reading comprehension (the Diagnostic Assessment of Reading
Comprehension (DARC)). The goal of this instrument was to disentangle
decoding skills, language proficiency skills, and vocabulary skills from
other key skills that underlie comprehension, such as working memory and
the ability to draw inferences across propositions. This effort was
motivated largely by three observations: (1) existing comprehension
assessments identify poor readers, but do not isolate the determinants
of poor performance; (2) current reading comprehension assessments
require good decoding skills and high levels of English proficiency,
including a strong vocabulary, which many ELL students lack; and (3) ELL
students may have strong inferencing skills and good working memory (key
components of comprehension), but their limited English proficiency
masks these competencies when reading in English.

August and Francis developed the DARC for use with elementary school
students; the measure is based upon a measure developed by Brenda Hannon
and Meredyth Daneman (University of Toronto at Mississauga) for
university students. The DARC uses easily read texts imbued with complex
relationships, in order to measure (1) the background knowledge needed
to understand the text, (2) a student's ability to recall information
read in text, (3) his or her ability to make inferences based solely
upon information provided in the text, and (4) the student's ability to
integrate information from the text with his or her existing knowledge.

August administered the DARC to 30 fifth-grade students who scored
lowest on the Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery-Revised (WLB-R) out
of a group of 180 Spanish-speaking ELL students who had been followed
longitudinally since second grade.[^6] The students were all
Spanish-speaking students, had been initially instructed in Spanish
through second or third grade, and then had been transferred to English
instruction. They were assessed on the DARC in fifth grade. August's
assumption was that some ELLs who had scored poorly on the WLPB-R
Passage Comprehension subtest would score better on the DARC.

Results indicated that some of the ELLs who had performed poorly on the
standardized test did well on the DARC; they could recall all the newly
presented information and make all the required inferences. Others who
could remember the newly presented information still had difficulties
drawing inferences across propositions, and some students could neither
remember the newly presented information nor make inferences across
propositions. These findings confirmed the value of a component-oriented
assessment battery for explaining performance upon standardized
assessments of reading comprehension. It also highlights the value of a
comprehension assessment that is easily decoded and for which extensive
vocabulary knowledge and background information are unnecessary. The
next step is to use the DARC to test native Spanish speakers outside of
the United States, as well as native English speakers within the United
States, to provide samples against which ELLs can be compared.

## B. Identification of Learning Disabilities in Spanish-Speaking English Language Learners

David J. Francis, Ph.D., University of Houston

David Francis discussed identifying learning disabilities in
Spanish-speaking English language learners, and then commented more
broadly upon the numerous challenges associated with assessing ELLs in
general. What children know in their native language is distinct from
what they know in their second language (L2), although there may be some
overlap. Since there are "holes" in the current language and concept
maps, ELLs must be assessed in both languages. Assessing a child in one
of the two (or more) languages gives an incomplete picture of his or her
knowledge, skills, abilities, and instructional needs. Assessment in the
L2 can be hindered by the student's failure to fully understand the
instructions, despite his or her competence to perform the task in L2.
Ideally, instructions should be given in the child's first language
(L1).

While testing in both languages is the ideal, it is difficult to find
comparable assessments in L1 and in English (as L2). Assessment
instruments must assess the same domain of knowledge or skill, and must
do so at comparable levels and with comparable precision. Unfortunately,
developing high-quality L1 assessments is technically and financially
demanding. Even if instruments exist in L1 that are comparable to L2
(English) instruments, finding competent individuals to conduct the
assessment is often daunting. Many urban school districts today report
over 100 spoken languages among their students. Variations in dialect
also can complicate the process of building comparable tests and finding
suitable examiners.

As difficult as it is to assess literacy in ELLs, identifying learning
disabilities among ELLs is even more difficult. There is very little
theoretical and empirical research on the development of academic
competencies in ELLs. While support is available for the common models
of literacy acquisition across alphabetic languages (e.g., phonological
awareness), it is unclear to what degree skills are transferred from L1
to L2. The conditions that affect this transfer are also unclear, as are
the effects of instruction and context upon the strength of
relationships in the model. There are several domains for which
comparable L1 and L2 assessments are being developed, including letter
names and sounds; phonemic awareness; rapid naming of letters; timed and
untimed word reading; fluency/word reading efficiency (disconnected and
connected text); and reading comprehension. However, there are very few
effective assessments for children whose first language is not
alphabet-based, because it is so difficult to compare non-alphabetic
languages to English. Clarifying the relationships between L1 and L2,
particularly when L1 is a non-alphabetic language, requires the test
developers to conduct explicit cross-linguistic research in order to
develop comparable assessments across the languages.

Francis concluded with the observation that identifying learning
disabilities in ELLs requires an understanding of the linkages among
theoretical variables of interest, as well as the moderating effects of
instruction and context upon these linkages. Additionally, it is
imperative to develop comparable assessments in multiple languages.
Finally, developers of assessment tools must understand the operational
characteristics of the key measures used in identifying ELL-LDs.

## C. Non-Linguistic Processing Tasks, LD, and Linguistically Diverse Learners

Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D., University of Minnesota

Kathryn Kohnert began by explaining that LD can have many different
definitions, depending upon the audience. While many people consider a
child with a learning disability to be someone with a normal IQ and
perhaps a language or literacy deficit, studies indicate that some
children with learning difficulties show the presence of subtle
weaknesses in areas of functioning that require little or no language
ability. A critical, empirical question is whether the research about
non-linguistic deficits among monolingual LD children can help to
identify (or rule out) LD among linguistically diverse children. Kohnert
and her colleagues have studied school-aged children, including
monolingual English speakers with intact language skills, monolingual
English speakers with primary language learning delays, and bilingual
Spanish-English speakers with intact language skills. They have used a
number of non-linguistic information processing tasks with these
children, and have observed that some of these tasks that tap basic,
non-linguistic information processing skills are both sensitive and
specific to LD in linguistically diverse learners, at least at the group
level. Such tasks therefore hold promise as one component in a nonbiased
assessment battery.

Kohnert noted a number of broad empirical questions that need to be
addressed in future research. For example, can current findings be
extended to additional tasks, language and cultural groups, and ages?
How does performance at the group level predict individual performance?
Can the technology used in the experimental setting for clinical
purposes be exploited?

## D. Invited Responses

Fred Genesee, Ph.D., McGill University, Montreal, Canada

Fred Genesee agreed that the lack of clarity in such terms as "ELL" and
"LD", as well as the paucity of research in normal and impaired language
development in monolinguals and multilinguals, poses significant
challenges --- in particular, regarding the role of language in learning
disabilities. It is necessary to differentiate between children who grow
up bilingual (e.g., they are exposed to two languages within the first
year of life) and those who become English language learners after the
age of normal first language development. There are both theoretical and
empirical reasons to believe that these two groups develop differently.
Normally developing children who are learning a second language often
exhibit some of the same difficulties as children struggling with a
language disability; thus, it is imperative to have as much normative
data as possible to distinguish between normal second language
development and second language development under conditions of
disability. Truly bilingual children often show the same type and extent
of learning impairments as monolingual children who also have language
learning difficulties, and the characteristics of these impairments can
be distinct from how ELL students display impairments. More research is
needed on preschool- and early elementary school-age children and their
development as ELLs. The efficacy of current SPED services for
monolingual and multilingual students must be determined. Second
language learning components must also be disentangled from general
learning components in research. Lastly, multiple comparisons must be
made across diverse groups of children, such as simultaneous vs. second
language learners and children with typical and those with impaired
capacities for language learning.

Robin Morris, Ph.D., Georgia State University

Robin Morris reiterated the need to develop standard definitions in the
research related to learning disabilities and English language learning,
and to capture the heterogeneity of the group. He also questioned
whether the way LDs are identified in reading also will apply to
learning disabilities in mathematics, and cautioned that even proficient
readers may lack oral or written fluency. He remarked upon the
difficulties inherent in assessing students whose native spoken language
has no written counterpart. Another key issue is the assessment of
instructional programs. Researchers should explore the academic and
linguistic progress of ELLs after they "graduate" from a school's ELL
services. What types of interventions are children receiving, and how do
these children fare when mainstreamed into the regular classroom or when
support services (whether bilingual education, L1 support, or English as
a Second Language \[ESL\] services) are discontinued? Another research
area is the assessment of bi- or multilingual children and the impact of
their previous schooling or lack of formal education. Even children with
the same native language background may represent very different
learning and cultural characteristics, such as Spanish speakers of
Puerto Rican, Mexican, or Spanish origin. Dr. Morris concluded that he
is hopeful about new assessment models that allow information to be
gathered through non-linguistic means, as well as those that capture the
dynamic nature of children's language learning and may be generalizable.

## E. Discussion

While there are not universal benchmarks, some general guidelines exist
that use objective criteria for comparing assessment tasks across
languages, including measuring the same domain of knowledge and skill by
conducting construct validity studies and by having experts review
assessments. To compare precision and accuracy, a number of empirical
methods may be used, including internal consistency, test/re-test
reliability, degree of correlation with other measures, and
item-response methods.

There was some discussion of non-linguistic measures. Kohnert reported
that a number of published studies have clearly identified subtle
weaknesses in basic non-linguistic information processing skills in
monolingual English-speaking children with language impairment (LI) or
LD. Studies presented here by Kohnert extended this literature to the
intersection of LI/LD and linguistically diverse learners. [^7] The
first of these NIH-funded studies is currently in press, with the
preparation of other manuscripts under way. Robin Morris expressed
concern that non-verbal assessment tasks be culturally relevant (i.e., a
student who has never played with blocks before would find building
figures with blocks a foreign task). However, Aquiles Iglesias noted
that the results from the Kohnert et al., studies actually spoke against
this type of cultural bias, as the typically developing bilingual and
monolingual children performed equivalently on the tasks that were not
language based, and both groups outperformed the English-only speaking
children with LI/LD. Morris further noted that it is important to
account for children with no prior school experience and children who
have experienced trauma (witnessing war, murder of parents, etc.), and
to determine the role these experiences play in any language learning
delays the child exhibits. Margarita Ramos shared that, for the
Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence (C-TONI) assessment
instrument, normative data were collected from Spanish speakers in
Mexico; the data were almost identical to score norms for the United
States.

Symposium attendees also expressed concern about the lack of clarity in
definitions used in research, and the need for strong theoretical models
that facilitate the understanding of language and literacy. Depending
upon the metric and definition, the same child may be categorized as a
"late talker" at age two, speech/language impaired at age four, language
LD at eight, reading disabled at 10, and "slow" by high school age. It
is a difficult and complex process to analyze the cause of a child's
learning problems, because many factors converge, including his or her
non-linguistic abilities. Unlike with students who are bilingual from
birth, there is so much variation among ELLs that teachers need to have
appropriate skills and tools in order to recognize patterns of language
development in children. Teachers and other adults who are involved with
these children need to develop the skills to appropriately refer SPED or
LEP students.

There is a significant difference between learning a second language and
learning in a second language. Fred Genesee noted that, in the last 20
years, approximately only 50 methodologically sound studies have been
conducted on this topic, and inconsistencies in vocabulary and
definitions make it difficult to offer valid comparisons across studies.
It is also crucial to develop comparable tests across languages.

# IV. Cultural Aspects of Assessment

## A. How Culture Can Affect Assessment

Lilly Li-Rong Cheng, Ph.D., San Diego State University

Lilly Cheng pointed out that children of immigrants will account for 88
percent of the growth in the under-18 population in the United States.
between 2000 and 2050. She outlined many important aspects of culture
and its impact upon interactions with ELLs and their families. Culture
permeates behavior; it dictates customary tasks and activities and can
be considered a human form of adaptation to the environment. People in
different societies who are confronted with similar challenges may have
different palettes of culturally acceptable solutions to the problems
they face. These diverse approaches are influenced by culturally
transmitted patterns, which vary with the individual's age, gender,
race, religion, geographic region, disability, socioeconomic status,
language, education, learning style, prior experience, motivation,
intelligence, knowledge, and other factors.

Members of a society share the symbols that are emblematic of their
culture, which may have a profound impact on their behavior. The meaning
and importance of one society's symbols may not be obvious to members of
other groups. Another factor to consider is that culture is dynamic,
constantly being invented or improved, and often borrowing from other
societies. Languages, too, are dynamic, and many people come from
multicultural, multilingual backgrounds in which different dialects or
languages are spoken. Today there are many "Englishes" spoken among the
world's six billion people, two billion of whom speak at least Pidgin
English ― more than double the number two decades ago. It is important
to remember that norms from specific language groups cannot be used with
students who are bi- or multilingual or use mixed vernaculars. A variety
of linguistic features, such as languages that are non-inflectional,
tonal, or logographic, can be found in multilingual-multicultural
populations. It is also important to understand nonverbal communication
factors, such as the use of movement, gesture, personal "space" and
modes of greeting in different languages.

In the classroom, culture affects how learning is organized, how school
rules and curricula are developed, and how teaching methods and
evaluation procedures are implemented. An understanding of cultural
differences can help schools prepare students for effective citizenship
in a multicultural world. To succeed with diverse populations of
students, professionals must develop cultural competence. This may be
defined as a set of congruent behaviors, attitudes, and policies that
come together in a system, agency, or group of professionals, enabling
them to work effectively in cross-cultural situations. Cultivating
cognitive competence requires not only the acquisition of knowledge, but
also the development of intellectual skills, such as observing,
classifying, measuring, communicating, predicting, inferring,
experimenting, formulating hypotheses, and/or interpreting data.

Cheng outlined areas where inefficiency, delay, or difficulties may
indicate language disorders: poor vocabulary, linguistic structure,
speech intelligibility and fluency, oral motor skills, and communication
difficulties at home. She described her **"R.I.O.T**.**"** procedure for
assessing ELLs: **Review** all pertinent documents and background
information. **Interview** teachers, peers, family members, and other
informants. **Observe** the student in multiple contexts with a variety
of people. **Test** the student using informal assessment, language
samples in both languages, formal assessment battery, and adapted
testing procedures as needed.

Cheng concluded with a number of critical questions: What languages
should be used in assessment and in intervention? How can parents be
involved in addressing the child's needs, and how should parents be
informed about a need for special education for their child? She
emphasized the importance of taking into account student behavior,
temperament, and other personality characteristics in any assessment.
Finally, since impairments can overlap considerably, it is imperative to
describe a child's problems, not just label them.

#### William G. Demmert, Jr., Ed.D., Western Washington University 

William Demmert quoted from Jerome Bruner to underscore the idea that
culture defines the individual: "You cannot understand mental activity
unless you take into account the cultural setting and its resources, the
very things that give mind its shape and scope. Learning, remembering,
talking, imagining: all of them are made possible by participating in a
culture."[^8] Issues of culture, language, cognition, community, and
socialization appear central to learning and to appropriate assessment,
and therefore must be adjusted for in the context of learning, social
development, identification of learning problems, and theories of
education.

He then gave symposium participants a brief communication test involving
Native Tlingit petroglyphs and pictographs. No one in the audience could
decipher the symbols, but Demmert could ― having grown up in Alaska,
with Tlingit oral histories and art forms passed down by his relatives.
He assured the audience that they were not cognitively impaired just
because they could not read the symbols; they simply lacked the
opportunities he had had to develop the skills needed to decipher the
images. In a similar way, Native Americans at a 2002 workshop expressed
concerns about the lack of culturally responsive educational
evaluations. These concerns centered around context; demographics
(statistical information about the lives and academic performance of
Native students); whether the Indian's view of the world was holistic or
analytic; the influences of oral traditions; levels of respect between
teacher and student; the ever-present influences and effects of abuse,
genocide, and policies of oppression on student image and identity; and
the value of starting with local knowledge when educating and assessing
these students. Demmert highlighted several important actions that will
be important to assessment and service delivery for Native American
students. True partnerships must be developed with indigenous people
when conducting research, and overcome a history of exclusion regarding
control of research and assessment. It is crucial to guarantee that
assessment or research activity does no harm to members of the community
in question. To do this, the influences of culture and environment on
attitudes, perspectives, and cognitive development must first be
examined in order to understand the community under study.

In conclusion, Demmert urged participants to consider seven principles
when reviewing cultural factors in assessment:

1)  Genetics, experiences, and culture significantly influence a
    person's cognitive development and understanding of the world in
    which he or she lives.

2)  Cultural attributes are not static and evolve across generations.

3)  Each individual has a different set of intelligences, which may be
    pre-determined or learned, upon which one can build.

4)  The context in which information is presented, or in which learning
    takes place, may enhance or impede a person's understanding.

5)  One is not able to understand mental activity unless the cultural
    settings and resources are taken into account.

6)  There is much to learn in order to understand all of the nuances of
    testing and assessing groups outside one's own spheres of
    experience.

7)  The United States has an ethical responsibility to develop a true
    collaboration with indigenous people when conducting research or
    assessments of Native American students.

## B. Discussion

Lilly Cheng reminded participants to "think outside the cultural box"
when formulating research agendas. It is important to capitalize upon
children's cultural strengths in order to create an optimal language
learning environment.

There was much discussion about how to preserve Native American
languages and what kind of research exists in this area. Demmert and
others expressed concern that Native American students are suffering
from low self-esteem and the loss of their heritage languages, because
of a lack of research about Native American languages and a lack of
funding for bilingual programs. It was pointed out that entire
communities experience the effects of this language loss, not just the
individual students. One participant cited research studies in Minnesota
indicating that children on and near the Indian reservation tested
similarly to ELLs, even though they spoke English as a first language.
Clearly, the "English only" policies were not beneficial to academic
performance in this case; although federal legislation does not prohibit
bilingual education, some statewide legislation requires "English only"
instruction.

# V. Assessment and Measurement Instruments to Detect and Predict Problems

It is clear that better measures for screening ELLs for LD at various
levels (i.e., screening instruments, more complete assessments) must be
developed. These might include at least the following:

-   Valid parent questionnaires that provide reliable information about
    the student's daily communication skills; such measures could help
    differentiate between typical versus impaired language in the
    child's first language;

-   Direct measures of various aspects of language and literacy both in
    English and in the ELL's native language;

-   Valid checklists for classroom teachers to use in screening for
    learning difficulties in ELLs;

-   Predictive screening tools that would enable teachers and other
    educators to identify students at risk and to monitor L2 learning in
    ELLs, to allow for earlier intervention; and

-   Measures of response to instruction and intervention that might be
    used as indicators of the presence of learning difficulties in ELLs.

Panelists were asked to consider these issues by drawing upon their own
work and that of others, in order to address the following questions:

-   What issues must be considered in using and developing measures to
    identify ELL students with learning difficulties?

-   What is being done or can be done now to identify those students?

-   What are the immediate steps that can be taken?

-   What are the long-range needs?

## A. Assessment of Bilingual Learners

Aquiles Iglesias, Ph.D., Temple University

Aquiles Iglesias emphasized the great diversity within the population of
bilingual Spanish-English speakers in this country. He defined five
distinct sub-groups within this bilingual population:

-   Monolingual Spanish speakers;

-   Spanish first, English second learners;

-   English first, Spanish second learners;

-   Spanish-English simultaneous learners; and

-   English-only speakers from Spanish-language cultures --- who, he
    argued, still are not identical in development to monolingual,
    native English speakers from English-speaking cultures.

As Iglesias noted, bilingual language learning is not always in one
direction, as in the case where a child is born in the United States and
learns English, moves away for years to another country and learns a
different language, then returns to the United States and must learn
English again. He also pointed out that language learning is not
unidimensional. Language loss or attrition in the first language may
occur over time as bilingual learners become more skilled in the second
language. Even when learning both languages simultaneously, children do
not acquire both languages evenly for the rest of their lives.
Therefore, it is important to assess students in terms of typical
language and learning trajectories for students similar to them;
evidence is lacking on the applicability or usefulness of the language
and learning trajectories of monolingual English-speaking students to
ELLs in the United States.

To identify bilingual children who are at the greatest risk for learning
disabilities, Iglesias tested bilingual children in both English and
Spanish and looked at those who fell at least one standard deviation
below the mean in both languages. He tested these children with the
Bilingual Spanish/English Assessment []{.mark}(BESA) instrument, a
static assessment measure that is culturally and linguistically
sensitive and geared to identifying language-impaired children. The
assessment includes parent and teacher questionnaires as well as
language samples and sections that test phonology, morphology,
semantics, and pragmatics. After the struggling students were
identified, training interventions were initiated to improve the
children's skills. After intervention, dynamic assessments identified
children whose skills were not improved with traditional techniques,
possibly due to learning disabilities.

## B. Assessment of Reading Problems: Two Lessons and a Fortuitous Potential Opportunity

Richard Wagner, Ph.D., Florida State University

In his remarks, Richard Wagner highlighted the need to identify and
intervene early in children's reading problems. Studies of elementary
school students indicate the importance of mastering decoding skills
before second grade. In addition to phonological awareness, many other
factors also may play a role in reading performance: attention,
phonological memory, lexical knowledge (vocabulary and spelling
strategy), cognitive strategy for doing a task, ability to generate
speech/motor output, and willingness to respond when asked.

While it is important to assess preschool-age children's phonological
sensitivity, traditional assessment tasks are cognitively complex and
are affected by vocabulary knowledge. The solution is to use simple
memory tasks that are believed to measure the same underlying
phonological ability. Wagner shared results of several studies of young
children, showing the correlation between phonological sensitivity and
awareness and phonological memory. He discovered that using an
assessment involving non-word repetition has many benefits when testing
pre-school children. First, the task is simple, can be used with
children as young as two years old, is easily adaptable for ELLs, and
can predict vocabulary learning in both first and second languages.[^9]
Lastly, this technique identifies children with language impairments
more effectively than do some traditional language measures.[^10] Wagner
presented the specific criteria for creating optimal "non-words," with
respect to the linguistic characteristics of English. He explained that
these criteria can be adapted for other languages. The specific criteria
make test items less "word-like," improve scoring reliability, and help
to make the task manageable, even for young participants.

## C. Assessing ELLs

Linda Siegel, Ph.D., University of British Columbia, Canada

Linda Siegel presented her findings from a five-year, longitudinal study
designed to determine which screening tools can be used to assess ESL
students, and whether teachers can be trained to administer this
screening. The study involved all 30 schools in a district with
approximately 950 students from varied socioeconomic backgrounds,
approximately 20 percent of whom were ESL students. All students were
assessed in reading ability annually from kindergarten through fourth
grade. The researchers measured students' responses to instruction and
intervention, thereby identifying LDs among ESL students. Another
research goal was to determine how students' language of origin might
influence outcomes. The students in this sample spoke a total of 38
different languages.

The teachers in the study were trained to administer a battery of tests
examining literacy, phonological awareness, and language skills among
kindergarten students. Literacy measures included letter identification
(names of letters), word identification (Wide Range Achievement Test of
Reading and Spelling \[WRAT\], Woodcock-Johnson), and simple spelling
(dictation). For phonological awareness, five measures were used: rhyme,
syllable, and phoneme identification and initial and final phoneme
deletion. The final area of assessment (language skills) included oral
cloze exercises, as well as memory exercises involving sentence
repetition (Stanford-Binet). It is important to note that teachers must
receive proper support (e.g., substitute teachers on call to teach the
class while they test individual students) in order to successfully
implement this very thorough assessment.

At the kindergarten level, teachers were able to classify students into
three reader types, both among monolingual English speakers (L1) and
among ESL speakers: at risk, borderline, and not at risk. At first
assessment, close to 26 percent of L1 and 50 percent of ESL students
were identified as at risk or borderline readers. After interventions in
kindergarten through fourth grade, less than 6 percent of L1 and less
than 7 percent of ESL students were still identified as at risk or
borderline readers, with the most change occurring in the two years of
kindergarten and first grade. When reading and comprehension measures
were compared between L1 and ESL students and between normal and reading
children with disabilities, there were striking similarities between
language groups but significant disparities between the normal and
reading disabled groups of students in both language groups. Although it
is important to continue to develop first language assessments, error
analysis of difficulties in both the first and second languages can be
helpful.

Assessment results reflected the influence of the native language upon
reading outcomes. For example, in the word spelling measure, children
whose native language was Tagalog, Slavic, Chinese, Japanese, French, or
Farsi performed better than native English and native Spanish speakers.
In pseudoword spelling, English speakers had the third highest scores,
and in syntactic awareness, they had the second highest scores, after
native Slavic-speaking children. This is not unexpected, given the
complexity of syntax in English and Slavic languages. These results
indicate that each language of origin has a unique impact on the ESL
student.

Finally, this assessment model is widely useful, because it can be
implemented on a large scale, using trained teachers who can provide
feedback about, and interventions for, children at risk.

## D. Invited Response

Manuel Barrera, Ph.D., Metropolitan State University

Manuel Barrera reiterated the importance of determining whether students
with limited English proficiency have a learning disability or are
really experiencing linguistic, cultural, or other types of learning
barriers. He emphasized the importance of assessing the learner's
current level of English and native language functioning and the
consequent need for better validated language assessments.

Based upon his research in this area, Barrera believes it is vital to
have a pre-referral system, to assess ELLs with special needs before
they are placed in special education classes. He advocates for using a
curriculum-based assessment, which tests students on material they are
exposed to in class, as opposed to using standardized tests. Evaluation
of assessment results can determine if a student has a great disparity
between ability and performance, and whether this difference is the
result of a processing problem. Barrera emphasized the importance of
creating linguistically appropriate and culturally relevant assessment
tools for ELLs. He pointed out that many assessments emphasize
high-functioning language ability in the child's first language and do
not provide a measure of the learner's capacity to build and use the
native language in the learner's direct linguistic environment. He
advocates using more direct classroom-based assessments that provide a
measure of how well a learner acquires language and academic skills,
based upon observed linguistic and academic capacities and in relation
to other learners with similar characteristics. By using a dynamic,
curriculum-based assessment process, professionals may be able to make
more appropriate comparisons among (1) bilingual students who are
proficient in English, (2) students with limited English proficiency,
and (3) ELLs who are truly learning disabled.

## E. Discussion

A question regarding the use of non-word repetition tasks as a screening
measure generated lively discussion about whether there are national
norms for pre-school children. This assessment is a component of the
Comprehensive Test of Phonological Processes (Pro-ED Publishers), which
has national norms starting at age five, but no norms for pre-school
children. A pre-school version of this test currently is being
developed.

A participant asked Linda Siegel how much of the language improvement in
students in grades K-4 may have been due to the natural exposure to
environmental stimuli, as opposed to specific interventions. She
responded that interventions were used with children both inside and
outside of the classroom, and that systematic exposure to English is
part of the intervention, in addition to storytelling, dramatic play,
etc. Participants also discussed the dramatic improvement exhibited by
ESL students in her Canadian study.

In response to a specific question about the influence of the family or
home upon student outcomes, Siegel stated that, while not formally
studied, anecdotal information gathered from students and parents
indicates that there are a number of important influences that are ripe
for further examination, such as older children teaching English to
younger siblings at home; varying cultural attitudes about the value of
literacy; and the involvement of some children in first-language
schooling on weekends or after school, or both.

In the discussion, several important points were raised. Schools need
teacher-friendly, standardized, descriptive statements about how ELLs
are acquiring English, so they will know when to refer students for
assessment and placement. Participants acknowledged the teachers'
frustration, but underscored the importance of creating assessment
materials based on solid research, not anecdotal information, in order
to avoid the pitfall of frequent changes in guidelines. Participants
emphasized the need for intensive, out-of-classroom interventions
targeted at the approximately 5 percent of students who are "treatment
resistors" and who usually can be identified by the end of kindergarten.
To be certain there is no learning disability, some participants
suggested that interventions should be considered in the first language,
not just in the societal language. A child's letter identification
ability and understanding of syntax by the end of kindergarten or the
beginning of first grade may be a reasonable predictor of ELLs who are
likely to have subsequent reading problems.

Further discussion centered on whether the age at which language is
learned really matters. Recent research indicates that older children
and adults can learn languages effectively --- suggesting that, contrary
to popular belief, although there may be a period after which attaining
native-like pronunciation is not possible for many individuals, there is
*not* a discrete window of second language learning opportunity in early
childhood.

# VI. Neuroimaging

Recent advances in technology have enabled researchers to document
changes in neurophysiological function, including response to reading
intervention. This technology has not yet proven to be useful
exclusively for the diagnosis of certain conditions, such as reading or
other learning disabilities; however, the technology itself and its
usefulness in behavioral and educational research have been
demonstrated. Thus, it is important to include neuroimaging research on
bilingual language abilities and language learning when seeking to
identify learning disabilities and their remediation among ELLs.

Panelists were asked to consider these issues by drawing upon their own
work and that of others, in order to address the following questions:

-   In what ways could functional neuroimaging be applied to the issues
    of identifying and measuring learning disabilities in ELLs?

-   Should investigative efforts be limited to basic behavioral research
    before pairing this with neuroimaging technology?

-   What types of neuroimaging might best be applied?

## A. Early Development and Plasticity of Neurophysiological Processes Involved in Reading

Andrew Papanicoloau, Ph.D., University of Texas-Houston Medical School

Andrew Papanicoloau explained the advantages of Magnetic Source Imaging
(MSI) for the study of brain mechanisms of cognitive functions at large.
These advantages include direct measurement of neuronal activity, with
reliable, valid, and detailed cortical maps that are cognitive
operation-specific and truly spatial-temporal. MSI also has advantages
for the study of brain development. It is safe and non-invasive, has a
quiet recording environment, allows for a child-friendly environment in
which the child is not alone, and permits the task to be repeated any
number of times.

Papanicoloau has mapped brain differences between normal readers and
dyslexic readers, as well as changes in brain function among dyslexics
after treatment intervention. In his study with kindergarten students,
he found that those students identified as high risk for a reading
disability showed similar brain map profiles as those identified as
dyslexic. He also has undertaken some studies with bilingual
individuals. He expressed hope that future language development
knowledge could benefit from wider use of MSI and closer scrutiny of
brain scans.

## B. Using Functional Neuroimaging to Study Learning in Reading

Rebecca Sandak, Ph.D., Haskins Laboratories

Rebecca Sandak and her colleagues have studied normal brain development
through longitudinal and cross-sectional methods, comparing skilled
readers with reading disabled populations. She summarized the findings
of her own work, that of her colleagues, and others' work on the neural
circuitry of reading. Beginning readers activate left hemisphere (LH)
temporoparietal and anterior regions (among many others), but do not
activate the LH occipitotemporal (OT) areas for reading activities.
However, increases in reading skill are associated with increasingly
specialized engagement of OT brain areas during reading. Research has
found that people with reading disabilities (RD) fail to show this
developmental trend. Instead, they activate right hemisphere homologues
of the posterior areas and overactivate the LH anterior region, perhaps
in an attempt to compensate for their disabilities.

Sandak reported that successful intervention with individuals who have
reading disabilities has been correlated with changes in brain
activation. As people became more efficient readers, more rapid word
recognition appears to be associated with changes in brain activity.
These findings have stimulated further research into how the
skill-related shift in cortical activation and specialization of the OT
"skill zone" develops, and how the system learns to read new words. The
researchers have several hypotheses that remain to be tested, including
that the quality of the lexical representations that are established
when new words are learned is affected by the type of processing engaged
in during learning; more specifically, that attention to phonological
and semantic features leads to better learning than does attention to
orthographic features, and that better learning leads to more efficient
cortical processing.

Recent preliminary experiments have revealed that, for optimal learning,
a learner must pay attention to the abstract phonological or semantic
features of new words. Additionally, equivalent behavioral facilitation
for phonologically and semantically trained items seems to be linked to
different underlying processing mechanisms. Only phonological training
led to the neural signature associated with increased processing
efficiency for familiar words and increased efficiency (relatively
reduced activation) in the OT "skill zone." This finding suggests that
this important region is phonologically tuned. The question remains as
to whether training that emphasizes attending to both phonological and
semantic features might result in even better learning than either
phonological or semantic training alone. If so, even stronger reductions
should be expected in the Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG), Supramarginal
Gyrus (SMG), and OT areas of the brain. Sandak shared some preliminary
results from a second study examining this question. Early findings
suggest that the best learning and neurobiological profile is associated
with attending to both phonological and semantic features.

By studying skilled readers, functional neuroimaging researchers have
identified the behavioral and neural signatures of effective reading.
They have been able to manipulate learning conditions in order to
discover how learning is optimized, thereby gaining insights about
reading instruction, disability, and remediation. In the first study,
Sandak and colleagues isolated the component processes involved in
reading, in order to examine their relative contribution to the training
of the cortical reading system. They currently are studying how these
components work together during reading acquisition.

Future directions for research include examining how these components
work differently in individuals with reading disabilities, and in
adolescents or adults with low literacy skills who have had different
types of reading instruction. In terms of ELLs, it will be important to
explore whether the signature of efficient learning is the same for L1
and L2 in individuals, and whether the developmental course for
bilingual students and/or ELLs is the same as or differs from that of
monolingual, English-speaking individuals.

## C. Invited Responses

### The Reading Circuit in Different Languages and Orthographies

Ken Pugh, Ph.D., Yale University and Haskins Laboratories

There is a growing body of cross-language research indicating that the
human brain develops remarkably similar neurocircuitry for reading,
regardless of the language or orthography. This phenomenon raises a
number of questions. Can these measures be used to identify children
with reading disabilities? Can brain scans be linked with behavior? The
neurobiological signature of reading disabilities, as well as the
neurodevelopmental trajectories associated with successful reading
acquisition, are likely to be similar between ELLs and monolinguals.
Beginning monolingual readers tend to rely on a large network of brain
regions, as they try to bind orthography to an already-present knowledge
of phonology and semantics. As children gain language skills, they
develop more of the efficient word recognition response in the left
occipitotemporal (OT) region and demonstrate diminished involvement in
the right hemisphere of the brain. By contrast, children with reading
disabilities (RD) have a frontward and rightward trajectory of activity
in the brain ― a trajectory that is the opposite of what is seen in
non-disabled, monolingual children.

To date, the most salient signature of reading disability across
different languages is this disruption of the ventral OT area. This
ventral system develops as a function of increased fluency, and its late
development may limit its diagnostic utility for very young children who
are just beginning literacy activity. Even though this left OT region is
the most robust cross-language feature, it may be that tracking the
developmental trajectory of this region longitudinally is a more
accurate way to diagnose RD. Another effective method of diagnosis may
be to look for the often-reported left hemisphere temporo-parietal
anomaly and the corresponding shift in reading-related activation to the
right hemisphere. It is also important to examine abnormal responses to
spoken language stimuli, particularly the failure to adequately link L1
and L2 in this modality. Proficient readers show a greater overlap
between L1 and L2 than do less proficient readers. These data indicate
there may be an opportunity for early diagnosis within the language
domain; most critically, the failure during early development to link
print language with spoken language may be a very important precursor of
the failure to develop an adequate trajectory in the LH OT region.

It is also necessary to look at other factors, such as perceptual
processing and very subtle motion sensitivity that have been found to be
helpful in diagnosing children with dyslexia. These indicators can be
detected very early and may constitute useful ways to track the
differences between children with RD and those without disabilities.
Finally, it is critical to measure the neurobiology of abilities such as
cognitive processing, memory, attention, and other language switching
and control operations ― and to do so very early, since these abilities
are the precursors of successful linguistic integration. Additionally,
it is important to remember that functional neuroimaging is a tool, not
an end in itself. There are a variety of other techniques to measure the
structural and functional development of the brain, which also can help
to identify those children who are likely to have special learning
needs. Ken Pugh concluded his presentation with a call for more research
on normal brain and learning development, in the hope that links will
ultimately be found to the underlying genetics of brain development.

### Neuroimaging SPED Children and ELLs

Guinivere Eden, Ph.D., Georgetown University

In examining issues related to the neuroimaging of ELLs with special
educational needs, Guinivere Eden identified important topics for future
research. One involves the tasks that are used during the acquisition of
brain imaging data --- i.e., which tasks are needed in order to compare
the performance of different groups of children, or different testing
sessions, or different languages of origin. Another topic is the need to
match data in imaging studies for reading experience, not just for age
and IQ. A child with a reading disability, or a non-native English
speaker, will behave differently from a monolingual child without
disabilities. Scanner signals can be correlated with standardized test
data to help mitigate this concern.

Eden also discussed the challenges that researchers face, such as trying
to make a child's tasks as natural as possible, and limiting the amount
of time a child spends in the scanner. While being scanned, children
often are asked to read single words. It is harder to test a child who
is reading an entire paragraph because there are so many different
variables. However, this type of study is important for accurate
measurement of reading fluency and comprehension. An additional
consideration is how to evaluate whether the children being scanned are
performing a task at the same level as the members of a control group.
Also, when testing a child in more than one language, should researchers
use the same words, directly translated, or select comparable words?
Eden reiterated the need for more longitudinal studies since language
and learning are dynamic processes and the brain changes so rapidly.

## D. Discussion

Participants discussed the importance of conducting functional
neuroimaging research on bilingual students and ELLs and the use of
appropriate control groups.

Further discussion focused upon the permanence of intervention-related
changes in brain activity over time. In at least three studies, which
showed changes in brain activation after reading interventions, those
changes were still present at least one year after the intervention.
Research is needed on the influence of environment upon biology, and
vice versa. One participant expressed concern about developing
neuroimaging profiles of normal individuals and those with learning
disabilities, because it could result in over-simplification of
screening results or negative labeling of children with ELL or LD issues
or both. One panelist's response to this concern was that the field of
neuroimaging is still in its infancy; there is a long way to go before
neuroimaging can be used to profile children, and it should always be
used in conjunction with behavioral and other assessments. Participants
also discussed the similarities and differences between the oral
language (auditory) processing patterns of dyslexic and non-dyslexic
readers, and the need for further research in this area.

# VII. Use of Technology in the Assessment and Screening and Support for LD Students Learning English as an Additional Language: Perspective from the United Kingdom

Ian Smythe, Ibis Creative Consultants, Ltd., London, United Kingdom

Ian Smythe was asked to address (1) whether computers can compensate for
a shortage of human expertise in identifying and supporting learning
disabilities in ELLs, and (2) how experience has demonstrated that
children and their parents, teachers, and assessors all could gain from
the effective use of information and communication technology.

Smythe identified several barriers to helping ELLs and SPED/ELLs, such
as the lack of appropriate assessment tools, a severe shortage of local
assessors with appropriate linguistic skills, and the ambiguous nature
of LD labels. He questioned the need for these labels and suggested that
if a deficit is present, then support should be provided, irrespective
of the label. However, he acknowledged that labels may be useful in
order to access funding. The key concern should be to identify ELL
students' strengths and weaknesses, which in turn should lead to
developing appropriate individual education plans.

Although computers are no substitute for human assessors and cannot do
everything, Smythe believes that they can help professionals overcome
many hurdles. He cited ongoing work being conducted in Europe,
addressing the key areas of assessment, teaching, resource development,
and support. In the field of assessment, measuring basic cognitive
processes, such as auditory short-term memory, sound discrimination, and
visual short-term memory skill, could be carried out in the individual's
first language by using computers and conducting assessments locally.
Assessment developers have formed a framework of assessment, and
developed appropriate software, which can be modified easily for
different language environments.

More complex processes, such as reading (as well as stress, motivation,
attention, etc.), cannot currently be assessed by the computer, and need
a speaker of the language in question to be present. However, by using
Internet-based video broadcast techniques, as demonstrated with
bilingual (English/Welsh) adults in Wales, remote diagnosis can be
performed, with due respect to the limitations of the system. These
methods mean that highly qualified assessors do not need to be
physically present with the student. Webcams also have been used to
educate teachers and parents (who form an integral part of the support
process) and to provide direct support to the pupil in his or her first
language.

In addition, assistive technology that originally was designed for the
learning disabled monolingual child has been adapted to help the
multilingual student. One example is a screen reader, which (in addition
to its text-reading capability) can show a picture representing the word
(semantic representation) whenever the user holds the mouse over a word.
Furthermore, users who have literacy skills in their first language can
use the look-up dictionary to translate single L2 words into the first
language. Finally, on a word-by-word basis, sound files can serve as
both a look-up tool and as reinforcement. This system is being
experimentally studied in Hong Kong and Canada for its effectiveness as
a support and learning tool.

## Discussion

One participant noted that, in the United States, many researchers must
wait for educational resources (software, etc.) to be commercially
developed in the private sector, and wondered how to accelerate this
process. Participants responded that there is a market for this type of
technology in the United States, and that researchers should contact
publishing and software companies in order to register their needs.
Small businesses and universities can apply for federal grants to fund
innovative instrument and product development.

In response to a question, Smythe reported that a small amount of
research has been conducted on the efficacy of computer-assisted
assessments versus traditional assessments, but clearly, more research
is needed. One dramatic advantage of using computer technology is that
trained assessors need not be in the same location as the student; using
a Webcam (with at least a two-megabyte connection), an assessor can
evaluate many of a child's oral language abilities and difficulties by
observing him or her electronically.

# VIII. Small Working Group Reports 

Symposium participants were divided into small working groups, to
identify research priorities and questions that must be addressed in
order to move the field toward accurate and timely identification of
learning disabilities in ELLs. They also were asked to identify how the
federal government and the research community can build the necessary
infrastructure for this research. This section integrates and summarizes
the small groups' reports.

It was reiterated that ELLs encompass a broad range of backgrounds,
abilities, and needs, and that any research agenda should allow an
expansive definition of ELL. At the same time, this underscores the
importance of conducting research that carefully characterizes the
samples under study in order to develop valid interpretations of their
findings. Participants also reiterated the need for better
identification and assessment of ELLs, and greater understanding of
language and literacy developmental trajectories, as well as the
individual and contextual factors that affect outcomes, including
intersections with neurobiology. Both cross-sectional and longitudinal
study designs are needed, as is more research on effective
interventions; one group even called for another workshop focusing upon
interventions for ELL/Ds. Participants also communicated a need to use
common sense and compassion in diagnosing, labeling, and intervening
with multilingual children. A summary of issues raised by the groups is
presented below, organized by broad topical themes.

## A. Identification and Assessment of LDs in the ELL Population

It will be important to have information on the developmental
trajectories of ELLs before the smaller subgroup of ELLs with learning
difficulties can be identified.

Classification research is needed that will accomplish the following
goals:

-   Replicate LD classification and identification studies of
    monolingual students with ELL students.

-   Develop cross-sectional study designs, with sampling at multiple
    points in the continuum of development, to examine student learning
    characteristics.

-   Broadly sample students with lower achievement, and more
    restrictively sample those from the normative range of achievement,
    in order to capture the full range of ability levels. The sampling
    process must be as inclusive as possible to be representative of
    learning abilities and problems that might exist in the ELL
    population.

-   Develop assessment strategies that would allow us to understand the
    co-morbidities between specific kinds of learning problems, such as
    reading disability in ELLs, and co-morbid conditions, such as
    attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or serious emotional
    disturbances.

In the area of assessment, tools such as the following must be developed
to identify language, literacy, and academic competencies in ELLs:

-   Screening measures to identify students who are at risk for learning
    difficulties, as well as more detailed measures for full assessment
    to identify learning difficulties and to design and test
    interventions;

-   

-   Classroom-based assessments and tools that teachers can use to
    monitor student progress; and

-   Research that guides decisions regarding when assessment should be
    conducted in English or when it should be conducted in the first
    language, or both.

In addition to developing new measurement tools, it is important to
determine whether the cognitive, linguistic, and neurobiological
assessment tools that are effective with monolinguals also are effective
with ELLs and ELL/Ds. Do these measures require adaptation for use with
ELLs? If so, what is the best way to determine the appropriate
adaptations?

The benefits of using technology in assessment also should be explored.
Can technology be used to develop a dual or "in-between" assessment
model that assesses a child's English ability but is adaptable to his or
her primary language? It will be important to determine the advantages
and disadvantages of using technology both in assessment and in the
delivery and monitoring of appropriate interventions.

Finally, it is important to determine the effectiveness and
appropriateness of accommodations for assessment and the circumstances
under which they should be used. While the use of accommodations for
ELLs may not be needed indefinitely, they may serve as a transitional
support. It will be helpful to determine when accommodations are needed,
and for how long, and how best to withdraw from or terminate them.

## B. Normal Language and Literacy Developmental Trajectories for ELLs

Learning disabilities are identified in contrast to typical development.
Therefore, research must examine the development of both typical ELLs
and ELLs with learning difficulties. The nature and process of English
language acquisition in typical ELLs must be understood before one can
accurately identify learning difficulties. Such research should involve
both cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, and should examine both
oral language development and literacy. However, to study developmental
trajectories of change over time, longitudinal research will be crucial.
Behavior in these two areas also should be correlated with neural
activation patterns.

Many ELLs are failing in school, even though many of them probably do
not have learning disabilities. It is important to discover the most
effective methods for identifying the barriers to normal development
(social, cultural, emotional, etc.) of ELLs in this country.

There are a number of language and cognitive factors to consider in
longitudinal studies of ELLs:

-   Do academic outcomes and English language acquisition vary,
    depending upon a child's first language --- and if so, how?

-   What is the child's level of proficiency in his or her first
    language and in English, at different points in time?

-   What kind of school instruction (bilingual, ESL, general education)
    is the child receiving, and what effect does the instruction appear
    to have on the child's language and learning? It will be important
    for the instruction to be observed and documented, given the wide
    variation known to exist within such labels as "bilingual
    education." Do different methods of instruction benefit different
    patterns of English language acquisition?

-   What effect does the loss of a child's first language skills have on
    the development of English, and vice versa? How should such language
    loss be measured and documented?

-   How does the age of the learner at first exposure to the second
    language relate to proficiency in his or her first and second
    language?

-   What are the implications of the language acquisition process in
    both the first and second languages for identifying and defining LD
    in ELLs? It is important to study the language development
    trajectories of children learning two languages simultaneously or
    sequentially, and to determine their implications for the
    identification and remediation of learning disabilities.

-   How does language proficiency in L1 and L2 relate to other levels of
    academic achievement?

-   How do all of these factors differ in heritage language situations,
    in which the children are native speakers of English learning a
    language for which few other native speakers are available to
    provide practice, linguistic context, and models?

In addition, it will be important that such studies examine contextual
factors that can affect the learning trajectory of ELLs:

-   What kind of school, neighborhood, and family factors affect the
    learning trajectory and risk status of ELLs?

-   How do the influences of these different contexts change over time
    or with age of first exposure?

-   What school, neighborhood, or family factors affect student
    motivation?

-   What contextual factors contribute to a child's successful academic
    achievement or make him or her more at risk for learning problems?

## C. Neurobiology

The application of neurobiology to language and literacy development is
still in its earliest stages, but it holds great promise for providing
new insights. The use of modern functional neuroimaging may enable
researchers to address the neurobiological bases for language
representation in bilinguals, especially *vis à vis* the age at which a
second language is acquired and whether languages are acquired
sequentially or simultaneously.

A subgroup addressing neurobiology issues outlined the following as
logical next steps for research in this area:

-   Develop a normative database of brain activation profiles
    (linguistic operations in first language).

-   Develop similar norms for subsequent language(s) at successive
    stages of acquisition (for the same individuals)

-   , and for L2 in simultaneous language learners.

    -   Compare profiles for L1 and L2, and for simultaneous vs.
        sequential language learners.

    -   Determine the operations (tasks) in which L1 and L2 profiles
        differ.

    -   Examine whether aberrant profiles correspond to particular
        behavioral and psychological deficits.

# IX. Summary

In summarizing the small working group reports, Peggy McCardle of NICHD
pointed out that the five small groups had come up with many overlapping
research priorities, and she encouraged participants to begin planning
new studies now. McCardle emphasized that cross-sectional and smaller
studies are needed, as well as large, longitudinal studies, and she
reminded researchers that federal funding is available for studies of
subgroups in different locations around the United States. While more
classification research needs to be conducted, longitudinal intervention
research can be conducted concurrently, especially in school settings.
She suggested that intervention research involve the 20 percent of ELLs
who, according to existing assessment tools, are performing at the
lowest level. Their performance after various interventions should be
compared to a group of "average" students.

The network of researchers who are studying reading in Spanish-speaking
children (with joint funding from NICHD and the Institute of Education
Sciences) soon will publish the results of their research. This will
include the development of at least 15 new measurement instruments, as
well as longitudinal data on the reading development of Spanish-speaking
ELLs. This will help to inform the field, but, as the workshop has
emphasized, more research is needed both on Spanish-speaking ELLs and on
those with other first languages. McCardle concluded by thanking the
participants for traveling so far and working so diligently for two days
to develop a national agenda of research priorities on learning
disabilities in English Language Learners.

Additional closing comments from participants included the idea that
ELLs who have learning disabilities should be viewed from a holistic
perspective, not simply from a "deficit" model. Research should examine
their adaptive skills, their non-linguistic skills, and what they can do
under optimal conditions --- not just their limitations. The need for
classification and definition research was emphasized, with the caution
that labels are scientifically useful for only three reasons: to aid
communication among professionals, to improve prediction capability, and
to indicate a neurobiological difference. Some participants felt that
too little is known about ELLs with LD to apply this label to children,
and that labels are dangerous because they imply knowledge when there is
none. Data are needed to develop a classification system or model that
would provide developmental benchmarks for ELL/Ds.

Participants also pointed out that more first language research is
needed, despite the difficulty of conducting such research. Due to the
plethora of first languages in this country, broad samplings would be
needed to obtain a significant number of students with the same first
language. Theoretical models also must be developed, which will enable
us to look at first languages and strategically group those that show
generalizable patterns for ELLs.

Other points included the involvement of parents, the influence of the
home and cultural environment, and the parents' access to information
about their child's progress in school. Participants also felt that it
is important to conduct research on the quality of instruction, the
language of instruction, and the types of support provided in schools.
The great variation among school environments also was mentioned. To
generalize about schools, a large sample is needed; this may be
challenging, but undoubtedly it will prove to be well worth the effort.

# Appendix A: Biosketches of Presenters {#appendix-a-biosketches-of-presenters .Appendix-Title}

**Diane August, Ph.D**., is senior research scientist at the Center for
Applied Linguistics and principal investigator of a NICHD-funded program
project grant focused on the development of literacy in English Language
Learners. She is also staff director for a Department of
Education-funded National Literacy Panel on Language Minority Children
and Youth. Previously she was a senior program officer at the National
Research Council and study director for the Committee on Developing a
Research Agenda on the Education of Limited English Proficient and
Bilingual Students. August has also worked as a public school teacher
and school administrator in California, a legislative assistant in the
area of education for a U.S. Congressman from California, a grants
officer for the Carnegie Corporation of New York, director of education
for the Children's Defense Fund, and an education consultant in
evaluation and testing, program improvement, and federal and state
education policy. August has a doctorate in education from Stanford
University.

**Manuel Barrera, Ph.D.,** is executive director of the Education
Department at the Metropolitan State Urban Teacher Program. He conducts
research in curriculum-based assessment for learners with limited
English proficiency and learning disabilities and in the use of
information technology in educational settings. He is a research
associate with the National Center on Educational Outcomes at the
University of Minnesota, project evaluator for the Arrowhead Preparing
Tomorrow's Teachers for Technology at the University of Minnesota
Duluth, and president-elect of the Minnesota Council for Children with
Emotional/Behavioral Disorders.

**Lilly Li-Rong Cheng, Ph.D.,** is a professor in the School of Speech,
Language, and Hearing Sciences at San Diego State University, and the
executive director of Global Partnership Development of the California
State University, San Marcos. She is a fellow of the American
Speech-Language Hearing Association (ASHA), and served as past president
of the International Affairs Association, a professional organization
related to ASHA. Cheng is the recipient of the 1997 ASHA Award for
special contributions to multicultural affairs, and of the 2002
Diversity Award from the California Speech and Hearing Association. She
received a master\'s degree in linguistics from Southern Illinois
University and in speech-language pathology from Michigan State
University. She obtained her doctoral degree in speech language
pathology and multicultural education from Claremont Graduate University
and San Diego State University. Cheng has researched bilingual
acquisition, language and culture, cross-cultural communication, and
speech-language pathology of the bilingual/multicultural population and
lectured on working with the ever-growing bilingual and multicultural
populations in the United States and many parts of the world. Her latest
book entitled *Communication Disorder across the Life Span* was
published in June 2003.

**Timothy E. D\'Emilio** completed doctoral studies in curriculum design
and evaluation at the University of Pittsburgh in 1981. He worked in
community-based organizations in developing biliteracy programs for
native Spanish- and English-speaking pre-schoolers, and conducted
research on metropolitan Washington area Hispanic families for HHS. He
worked in the bilingual education offices at the district and state
levels before joining the federal government in 1991. He is currently a
research analyst in OELA, monitoring contracts, including those of
OELA's National Clearinghouse for English Language Acquisition and the
*Descriptive Study of Services to LEP Students and LEP Students with
Disabilities*.

**William G. Demmert, Jr**., **Ed.D.,** is professor of Education at
Western Washington University. In addition to his work with the RAND
Corporation on a review of the research literature on the education of
Native Americans, and on an analysis of the National Assessment of
Educational Progress (NAEP) data targeting Native American students,
Demmert is working with the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory to
review and assess available quantitative research on the influences of
language and cultural programs on the education of Native American
students. Professor Demmert recently served as a member of the
Independent Review Panel created by the U.S. Congress to undertake a
national assessment of Title I, of the Elementary and Secondary
Education Amendments (ESEA), and other federal programs in the U.S.
Department of Education, 1995-2001. He was appointed by the U.S.
Department of Education (along with former Secretary of Education Terrel
H. Bell) as co-chair of the Indian Nations at Risk Task Force and served
as the primary writer for the Indian Nations at Risk Task Force Report
published in October 1991. He served as the first U.S. deputy
commissioner of education, Office of Indian Education, U.S. Office of
Education, 1975-1976; the director of Indian Education Programs, U.S.
Bureau of Indian Affairs, 1976-1978; and as the commissioner of
education, State of Alaska, 1987-1990.

**Guinevere Eden, Ph.D.,** is an associate professor in the Department
of Pediatrics and directs the Center for the Study of Learning at
Georgetown University Medical Center in Washington D.C. Funded by the
NICHD and in collaboration with Gallaudet University and Wake Forest
School of Medicine, the center's research focuses on the neurobiological
representation of reading and how it may be altered in individuals who
have developmental dyslexia or are deaf. Further, she and her colleagues
are researching how reading is impacted by instruction or modes of
communication and are utilizing functional MRI to study the
neurobiological correlates of reading remediation. Eden received her
bachelor's degree from University College London in physiology and her
doctorate from the Department of Physiology, Oxford University. She came
to the United States in 1993, to pursue a Fogarty Fellowship at the
National Institutes of Mental Health, Bethesda, Md., on the application
of functional neuroimaging techniques to study individuals with
dyslexia. She is currently a board member of the International Dyslexia
Association and serves on the editorial boards of the *Annals of
Dyslexia* and *Learning Disabilities Research and Practice*.

**David J. Francis, Ph.D.,** is professor of quantitative methods and
chairman of the Department of Psychology at the University of Houston,
where he also serves as director of the Texas Institute for Measurement,
Evaluation, and Statistics. He is currently the principal investigator
of a program project grant on oral language and literacy acquisition in
Spanish-speaking children that is jointly funded by NICHD and the
Institute for Education Sciences at the Department of Education. He has
collaborated for many years in research on reading and reading
disabilities, attention problems, and developmental consequences of
brain injuries and birth defects. Francis currently serves on many
advisory panels, including the Independent Review Panel for the National
Assessment of Title I, the National Technical Advisory Group of the What
Works Clearing House for the U.S. Department of Education, and the
National Advisory Committee for the National Center for Educational
Accountability. Previously, he has served as adviser to the U.S.
Department of Education during Negotiated Rule Making for No Child Left
Behind, as chairman of the Mental Retardation Research Subcommittee at
NICHD, as chairman of the Advisory Council on Education Statistics, and
as a member of the NIH's Behavioral Medicine Study Section, and of the
National Assessment Governing Board's Taskforce on the Use of NAEP to
Corroborate State Test Results.

**Fred Genesee, Ph.D.,** is a professor in the Psychology Department at
McGill University, Montreal, Canada. He has carried out extensive
research on alternative approaches to bilingual education, including
second and foreign language immersion programs for language-majority
students and alternative forms of bilingual education for
language-minority students. He is currently co-investigator on a
national longitudinal study of a number of two-way immersion programs in
the United States. Genesee is also interested in basic issues related to
language learning, representation and use in bilinguals. His current
work in this domain focuses on simultaneous acquisition of two languages
during early infancy and childhood. His specific interests include
language representation (lexical and syntactic) in the early stages of
bilingual acquisition, transfer in bilingual development, structural and
functional characteristics of child bilingual code-mixing, and
communication skills in young bilingual children. A new line of research
will examine the language and speech processing skills of pre-verbal
bilingual and second-language infants. Collectively, this work seeks to
extend our understanding of the limits of the human faculty for language
acquisition which, to date, has been based primarily on studies of
monolingual acquisition.

**Maria Hernandez-Ferrier, Ph.D.,** was promoted to the position of
deputy under secretary of education in October 2003, and continues to
serve as director of the Office of English Language Acquisition (OLEA)
and as principal adviser to the secretary of education on all matters
related to Hispanic issues in education and limited English language
learners. Hernandez-Ferrier oversees the distribution of \$665 million
in funding for English language learners, and works to ensure that the
nation\'s five million students who are learning English receive the
same high-quality education as their peers. She has also started an
education campaign to inform parents of their rights and benefits under
the No Child Left Behind education reform law. The bilingual
granddaughter of Mexican immigrants, Hernandez-Ferrier has 17 years of
experience in Texas public schools. Her accomplishments include creating
many award-winning model programs for assisting underserved children and
youth. Prior to her appointment to OELA, she served as the executive
director of City Year, the program model for AmeriCorps, a federal
national service organization. City Year brings young people from
diverse backgrounds together to provide services for children in
low-income elementary schools. Hernandez Ferrier is also the recipient
of numerous awards, including the United Way Volunteer of the Year Award
and the Minority Leadership Award from the National Community Education
Association. She earned a doctorate in education administration from
Texas A&M University.

**Aquiles Iglesias, Ph.D.**, is a professor in the Department of
Communication Sciences (Speech-Language Pathology Program) in the
College of Health Professions and is dean of the Graduate School at
Temple University. For the last 17 years, Iglesias has been the
principal investigator for seven federal training grants designed to
increase the representation of disadvantaged students at Temple. He has
served as the associate director of the National Center on Inner Cities
and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Education Laboratory, both housed at
Temple University and funded by the Institute of Education Science
(IES), U.S. Department of Education. Iglesias' area of research is
language acquisition in bilingual (Spanish/English) children and he has
published extensively in this area. He presently is the principal
investigator for a six-year National Institutes of Child Health and
Human Development (NICHD) NIH-funded contract to develop an assessment
protocol for bilingual (Spanish/English) children and co-principal
investigator of an IES-funded project to examine the relationships
between oral narrative skills and literacy in Latino children.

**Kathryn Kohnert, Ph.D.,** is an assistant professor in the Department
of Communication Disorders at the University of Minnesota. Kohnert's
research investigates the relationship between first and second
languages in developing bilinguals, and between language and basic
cognitive processes (such as perception, attention, memory) in diverse
learners, with and without language impairments. She is also a
nationally certified bilingual speech-language pathologist and a former
teacher of English as a second language. Her publications include
numerous articles in peer-reviewed journals as well as clinical
intervention programs in English and Spanish.

**Peggy McCardle, Ph.D., M.P.H**., is associate chief of the Child
Development and Behavior Branch in the Center for Research for Mothers
and Children at the National Institutes of Child Health and Human
Development (NICHD). McCardle holds a bachelor\'s degree in French, a
doctorate in linguistics, and a master's degree in public health. Early
in her career, McCardle was an elementary classroom teacher. She has
held both university faculty positions and hospital-based clinical
positions, and has published articles addressing various aspects of
developmental psycholinguistics as well as issues in public health.
Before joining the NICHD, she served as a scientific review
administrator and as a senior adviser to the deputy director for
extramural research in the Office of the NIH director. In addition to
her duties as associate chief, she directs the research program in
Language, Bilingual and Biliteracy Development and Disorders, which
includes three interagency-funded research networks: the Biliteracy
Research Network (development of English literacy in Spanish speaking
children); the Adult Literacy Research Network; and the new Adolescent
Literacy Research Network. She also serves as the NICHD liaison to the
National Reading Panel, is on the steering committee of the National
Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children and Youth, and leads or
serves on various interagency working groups.

**Gail McKoon, Ph.D.,** is professor of psychology and cognitive science
at Ohio State University. Her areas of research include discourse
comprehension and memory. She has published over 100 peer-reviewed
articles and served on numerous grant review panels for NIH, the U.S.
Department of Education, and the National Science Foundation.

**Joan Mele-McCarthy, D.A.** is special assistant and senior policy
advisor to the assistant secretary of special education and
rehabilitation services (OSERS) in the U.S. Department of Education. Her
work in OSERS revolves around issues with children who have disabilities
and the professionals who serve them. Prior to this appointment,
Mele-McCarthy owned and directed a multidisciplinary pediatric private
practice serving clients between two years of age and college age who
had communication disorders, language learning differences and
disabilities (with emphasis on reading disabilities and dyslexia), and
processing difficulties. Mele-McCarthy's professional experiences
include public schools, private schools, hospitals and private practice
settings. She has served as a clinical and academic faculty member at
several universities in the field of communication sciences and
disorders. She has presented peer reviewed research-to-practice papers,
as well as led seminars and workshops locally and nationally. She has
served on executive boards of several professional associations in her
field.

**Robin Morris, Ph.D.,** is the associate dean for Research and Graduate
Studies and Regent's Professor of psychology in the College of Arts and
Sciences at Georgia State University. He also holds a joint appointment
in the Department of Educational Psychology and Special Education in the
College of Education, and is the founding director of the Regents Center
for Learning Disorders at Georgia State University, which serves 16
colleges and universities in the Board of Regents System. He holds
faculty research appointments in the NSF Center for Behavioral
Neuroscience based in Atlanta, and the Center for Research on Atypical
Development and Learning at Georgia State. Morris received his doctorate
at the University of Florida in clinical psychology and neuropsychology.
He has focused his scholarly and clinical work on the biological and
environmental causes of learning, attentional, developmental and
acquired neurological problems in developing children and adults with a
variety of disorders, and cognitive and neuropsychological development
in typically developing children. He has published widely in these
areas, and has federal grant awards from the National Institute of Child
Health and Human Development, the Interagency Educational Research
Initiative. His current research is focused on reading and language
development, reading disabilities and dyslexia, bilingual language and
reading development, and the neuroimaging of the developing brain. He
was recently appointed by President Bush, and confirmed by the Senate,
to the Board of the National Institute for Literacy (NIFL).

**Andrew Papanicolaou, Ph.D.,** is professor and director of the
Division of Clinical Neurosciences in the Department of Neurosurgery at
the University of Texas at Houston. He is also director of the Magnetic
Source Imaging Unit at Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, and
director of the Vivian Smith Advanced Studies Institute of the
International Neuropsychological Society. Dr. Papanicolaou is currently
the principal investigator on a number of grants, including NICHD-funded
grants on "Mathematics Cognition and Specific Learning Disabilities,"
"Imaging Networks for Memory Processing," and "Biological and Behavioral
Variation in the Language Development of Spanish-Speaking Children." He
received his doctorate in psychology from Southern Illinois University
at Carbondale.

**Kenneth R. Pugh, Ph.D.,** is a research scientist at the Yale
University School of Medicine (pediatrics) and also holds an appointment
as a senior scientist at the Haskins Laboratories in New Haven,
Connecticut. His primary research interests are in the areas of
cognitive neuroscience and psycholinguistics. His research program
examines the neurobiology of language development with a particular
emphasis on reading and reading disability, and employs combined
behavioral and functional neuroimaging techniques. He also directs the
NIH-funded Yale Reading Study.

**Rebecca Sandak, Ph.D.,** is a senior scientist at Haskins
Laboratories. Her research is focused on understanding the cognitive
processes underlying skilled and impaired reading, reading acquisition,
and successful reading instruction and remediation. In her recent work
she has been employing functional neuroimaging (fMRI) to investigate how
learning conditions, reading expertise, and reading strategies influence
the cortical areas that are recruited for reading. She is presently a
lead investigator on a research project (in collaboration with the
Kennedy-Krieger Institute and Educational Testing Services) evaluating
the behavioral and neural effects of several research-driven
intervention methods for improving the reading abilities of struggling
adolescent readers.

**Linda Siegel, Ph.D.,** is associate dean of Graduate Programs and
Research and a professor in the Department of Educational Psychology and
Special Education at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver,
British Columbia, Canada, where she holds the Dorothy C. Lam Chair in
Special Education. She has conducted research in learning disabilities,
language and cognitive development, the role of psychoeducational
assessment in the identification of learning disabilities, bilingualism,
premature and high-risk infants, and the early identification of
learning disabilities. Siegel received her bachelor's degree from Queens
College in New York and a master's of science and doctorate degrees from
Yale University. She has served as the editor of the *International
Journal of Behavioural Development* and the associate editor of *Child
Development*.

**Ian Smythe, Ph.D.,** is an international dyslexia consultant, working
on specific learning difficulties in different countries and
multilingual environments. He has worked with government departments and
non-governmental organizations in many countries, developing resources
and conducting workshops for teachers, parents, researchers, and other
professionals working with dyslexic individuals. His Web-based
assessment tools in multiple languages developed in association with the
Adult Dyslexia Organisation is now being promoted by the U.K. government
as a model for Internet based-support systems for other organizations.
He is also team leader for several multinational European Union-funded
projects, including Internet delivery of training for those teaching
dyslexics in many languages, including bilingual contexts. Smythe writes
extensively on the assessment of the multilingual individual, was editor
of the *British Dyslexia Association\'s Dyslexia Handbook* from 1999 to
2001, and is the principle editor of *The International Book of
Dyslexia* (2003), which includes reviews of dyslexia in 18 languages and
dyslexia provision in 53 countries.

**Richard Wagner, Ph.D.,** is the Alfred Binet Professor of Psychology
at Florida State University. He earned a doctorate in cognitive
psychology from Yale University in 1985, and a master\'s degree in
school psychology from the University of Akron. Before embarking on his
research career, he completed a year of internship and two years of
experience as a school psychologist. His major area of research interest
is the acquisition of complex cognitive knowledge and skills, which he
has pursued in two domains. In the domain of reading, his research has
focused on the role of reading-related phonological processing abilities
in normal and abnormal development of reading skills, and in the
prediction, prevention, and remediation of dyslexia. In the domain of
human intelligence, his research has focused on the role of practical
knowledge and intelligence in intellectual performance manifested
outside the classroom setting. His work has addressed a variety of
measurement issues and practical considerations involving assessment of
constructs in the domains of language, reading, and intelligence. He has
coauthored a test of practical intelligence called the *Tacit Knowledge
Inventory for Managers* published by the Psychological Corporation, and
is coauthor on tests of phonological processing and reading published by
PRO-Ed.

# Appendix B: Symposium Participants {#appendix-b-symposium-participants .Appendix-Title}

Jamal Abedi, University of California Los Angeles

Drew Albritten, Council for Exceptional Children

Diane August, Center for Applied Linguistics

Manuel Barrera, Metropolitan State University

Joanne Carlisle, University of Michigan

Lilly Li-Rong Cheng, San Diego State University

Alan Coulter, Louisiana State University

Laurie Cutting, Kennedy Krieger Institute and Johns Hopkins University

Timothy D'Emilio, Office of English Language Acquisition

William Demmert, Western Washington University

Grace Zamora Durán, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services

Guinevere Eden, Georgetown University Medical Center

Maria Hernandez-Ferrier, Office of English Language Acquisition

Todd Fletcher, University of Arizona

David Francis, University of Houston

Fred Genesee, McGill University

Russell Gersten, Instructional Research Group

Darion Griffin, American Federation of Teachers

Nancy Hennessy, International Dyslexia Association

Erika Hoff, Florida Atlantic University

Sheldon Horowitz, National Center for Learning Disabilities

Aquiles Iglesias, Temple University

Kathryn Kohnert, University of Minnesota

Socorra Lara, Office of English Language Acquisition

Stephanie Lee, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

Kathleen Leos, Office of English Language Acquisition

Richard Long, International Reading Association

Giselle Lundy-Ponce, American Federation of Teachers

Joy Markowitz, National Association of State Directors of Special
Education, Inc.

Peggy McCardle, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

Denise McKeon, National Education Association

Gail McKoon, Ohio State University

Joan Mele-McCarthy, Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative
Services

Robin Morris, Georgia State University

Andrea (DeeDee) Moxey, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Jack A. Naglieri, George Mason University

Alba A. Ortiz, University of Texas -- Austin

Verónica Ortiz de Elizondo, Mexico

Andrew Papanicolaou, University of Texas -- Houston

Robert Pasternack, formerly of the Office of Special Education and
Rehabilitative Services

Kenneth R. Pugh, Yale University School of Medicine

Patti Ralabate, National Education Association

Jorge Ramos, Pro-ed Latinoamerica, S.A. de C.V., Mexico

Margarita Ramos, Centro de Investigacion y Diagnostico, S.C., Mexico

Charlene Rivera, George Washington University

David Rose, Center for Applied Technology

Claudia Saad, American Speech-Language-Hearing Association

Rebecca Sandak, Haskins Laboratories

Tanya Shuy, National Institute for Literacy

Linda Siegel, University of British Columbia, Canada

Ian Smythe, Ibis Creative Consultants, Ltd., United Kingdom

Deanna Stecker, National Center for Learning Disabilities

Marina Tse, Office of English Language Acquisition

Carol Valdivieso, Academy for Educational Development

Thomas Viall, International Dyslexia Association

Richard Wagner, Florida State University

# List of Acronyms

ADHD Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder

BESA Bilingual Spanish/English Assessment

BI Bilingual or Spanish-English speakers with intact language skills

CAL Center for Applied Linguistics

C-TONI Comprehensive Test of Nonverbal Intelligence

ELL English Language Learner(s)

ELL/Ds ELLs with Disabilities

EO English Only or English-Only speakers with intact language skills

ESL English as a Second Language

IES Institute for Education Sciences

IFG Inferior Frontal Gyrus (region of the brain)

IQ Intelligence Quotient

ITG Inferior Temporal Gyrus (region of the brain)

L1 first language

L2 second language

LD Learning Disability or Learning Disabled or English-only speakers
with primary language learning delays

LEP Limited English Proficient or Limited English Proficiency

LI Language Impairment

MSI Magnetic Source Imaging

MTG Medial Temporal Gyrus (region of the brain)

NCLB No Child Left Behind (Act)

NEA National Education Association

NICHD National Institute of Child Health and Human Development

NIH National Institutes of Health

OCR Office for Civil Rights

OELA Office of English Language Acquisition

OSERS Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services

OT Occipitotemporal

RD Reading Disabilities

SMG Supramarginal Gyrus (region of the brain)

SPED or SpED Special Education

DARC Diagnostic Assessment of Reading Comprehension

TONI Test of Nonverbal Intelligence

WLPB-R Woodcock Language Proficiency Battery -- Revised

WRAT Wide Range Achievement Test (contains both tests of Reading and
Spelling, as two separate tests)

[^1]: Population Resource Center, 2000, Executive Summary: *Status of
    Children in America*.

[^2]: To Assure the Free Appropriate Public Education of All Children
    with Disabilities. *Twenty-second Annual Report to Congress on the
    Implementation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act*.
    Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Education. As reported in
    National Research Council, 2002, *Minority students in special and
    gifted education. Committee on Minority Representation in Special
    Education,* Donovan, M. Suzanne and Cross, Christopher T. (Eds.).
    National Academy Press. Page 454.

[^3]: U.S. Department of Education, Office of English Language
    Acquisition, Language Enhancement and Academic Achievement of
    Limited English Proficient Students, *Descriptive Study of Services
    to LEP Students and LEP Students with Disabilities,* Washington,
    D.C., 2003.

[^4]: U.S. Department of Education, Office for Civil Rights, *Elementary
    and Secondary School Civil Rights Compliance Report,* Washington,
    D.C., 2000.

[^5]: Holm, A., Dodd, B. J., Stow, S., and Pert, S., 1999,
    Identification and differential diagnosis of phonological disorder
    in bilingual children, *Language Testing,* 16: 271-292.

[^6]: The WLPB-R provides an overall measure of language proficiency and
    expanded measures of oral language, reading, and written language in
    both English and Spanish.

[^7]: Kohnert, K. and Windsor, J, (2004). The Search of Common
    Ground-Part II: Non-Linguistic Performance by Linguistically Diverse
    Learners. *Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,* 47:
    891-903. Windsor, J. and Kohnert, K, (2004). The Search of Common
    Ground-Part I: Lexical Performance by Linguistically Diverse
    Learners. *Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research,* 47:
    877-890.

[^8]: Bruner, J. 1966. *The Culture of Education*. Cambridge, MA and
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