Ana: A Speech-Language Referral in Kindergarten
Ana, a 5-year-old kindergartner whose family speaks Spanish at home, has attended an English-medium classroom for seven months. Her teacher reports that Ana says 'wed' for red, 'tun' for sun, drops final sounds, and uses short, simple sentences. Last week the teacher filed a speech-language referral citing 'articulation disorder and possible language delay' and asked that Ana be evaluated before the end of the referral window. Ana's mother, through the school's interpreter, says Ana talks constantly at home in Spanish, tells stories, and is easily understood by family members. Screening data show English letter naming at 14 of 26 and Spanish letter naming at 20 of 26; Ana had no preschool. The speech-language pathologist serves three buildings and can offer only one 30-minute session, with a Spanish-speaking interpreter, before the team's two-week deadline. At the pre-referral meeting the principal says, 'We can sort out the difference-versus-disorder question after we test; let's not lose time.'
1. What evidence should the team assemble before deciding whether Ana has a speech or language impairment? Name at least four specific sources and explain what each would reveal.
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The team needs data that can be compared against two sets of expectations, not one.
- A language sample in Spanish and in English. If errors and short utterances appear in both languages, the profile looks more like an impairment; if Spanish is age-typical and only English is affected, the pattern is more consistent with limited exposure.
- Developmental norms for each language. English /r/ is commonly not mastered until about age 6, and the substitution of /w/ for /r/ is one of the most frequently reported patterns in young English speakers; Spanish has its own late-developing sounds, including the trill. English final consonant clusters are also late-acquired and are absent from Spanish syllable structure, so 'tun' for sun is a predictable cross-linguistic pattern, not automatically a disorder.
- Hearing and health screening, which the team should confirm is current.
- Opportunity-to-learn data: seven months of English with no preschool is a short window; the team should document how much comprehensible input Ana has received.
- Dynamic assessment (test–teach–retest) with interpreted support, which shows whether Ana responds to mediated learning rather than only what she already knows.
The point is that a score alone cannot separate difference from disorder; the team needs converging evidence across languages and contexts.
2. The principal wants to test now and settle the question later. How should the team reason about the timing and about the risks of over-identification and under-identification?
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Both errors are real, and the team should name them out loud.
Over-identification would label a child who is developing typically for a bilingual kindergartner. The costs are concrete: lowered expectations, an IEP that follows her for years, and time pulled from the very English exposure she needs. English-only standardized articulation and language tests are not valid for this purpose; they would confirm the obvious fact that her English is still developing.
Under-identification would delay help for a genuine disability. That risk is why the team should not simply wait a year; it should gather bilingual data and try targeted intervention with progress monitoring.
The two-week deadline is administrative, not a legal exception to the requirement that a disability determination not rest on limited English proficiency or on lack of instruction. The team can meet the deadline by completing the pre-referral data collection and the dynamic assessment, then deciding whether a full evaluation is warranted. If the SLP's availability is the bottleneck, that is a resource problem to solve (interpreter-supported session, bilingual SLP consultation, contracted evaluation), not a reason to skip the comparison data.
3. What should happen instructionally over the next six to eight weeks, and what results would justify moving to a full evaluation?
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The team should run a short, data-driven Tier 2 cycle rather than idle waiting.
Instruction: small-group phonological awareness and vocabulary work in both languages, with Spanish used to anchor meaning and English used for transfer; repeated readings and oral story retelling; explicit modeling of target sounds in meaningful words rather than drill on isolated phonemes; parent-provided home language storytelling as a strength to build on.
Progress monitoring: weekly probes on the specific targets (final consonants, /r/ production in words and conversation, mean length of utterance in a spontaneous sample in each language), plus a second language sample in Spanish at the end of the cycle.
Triggers for a full evaluation: flat or declining progress despite eight weeks of targeted, documented intervention; errors that are present and atypical in Spanish as well as English (for example, omissions or substitutions that are not part of the Spanish inventory or that persist past the expected age); difficulty understanding or being understood at home according to the family; and no response to dynamic assessment.
If instead Ana's Spanish is age-appropriate and her English errors track typical bilingual patterns while her monitored skills improve, the team should document that, keep her in Tier 1/2 support, and revisit in a semester. Either way, the decision is made on bilingual evidence, not on the calendar.