The Referral They Want to Sign Today
You are the school psychologist at a Kâ5 building. A fourth-grade student who moved from Guatemala 18 months ago is being referred for a specific learning disability in reading. The student's English is conversational but academic English is limited; the home language is Spanish and the parents speak little English. The prereferral record contains five weeks of Tier 2 small-group work, three of which were delivered by a paraprofessional using materials two grade levels above the student's instructional level, and running records that show steady growth. The grade-level team wants to test now with an English-only battery to "get the numbers" before the January window closes; an interpreter is available but the team says it will "slow things down." The parents have signed the consent form but the meeting was conducted without an interpreter.
1. What is procedurally and substantively wrong with this referral as it stands?
Read the worked answer
Several independent problems - any one of which would make the evaluation indefensible.
- Informed consent is doubtful. Parents signed a document in a meeting conducted in a language they do not fully understand. Consent that isn't informed isn't consent; the meeting should be redone with a qualified interpreter and documents in Spanish.
- The intervention wasn't a real intervention. Three of five weeks were delivered by a paraprofessional with materials two grade levels above the student's level. That is a mismatch, not a failed intervention. The prereferral requirement exists to answer "has the child been given adequate opportunity to learn?" - and here the answer is no.
- The data contradict the referral. Running records show steady growth. A student learning a new language who is improving is exhibiting a language-acquisition pattern, not a disability marker.
- Exclusionary factors weren't ruled out. Limited English proficiency, interrupted formal education, and cultural difference must be considered before eligibility, not after the numbers come back.
- "English-only to get the numbers" inverts the purpose. A score from a test the student cannot access tells you about the test's language demands, not the child's reading ability.
2. The team wants to proceed anyway because of the January window. What do you recommend, in what order, and what do you say?
Read the worked answer
Recommend sequence over speed, and put the risk in the team's terms.
- Reconvene with a qualified interpreter and re-explain the referral, the evaluation process, and the parents' right to refuse. Document that you did.
- Restart Tier 2 with fidelity - appropriate materials, trained interventionist, 4â5 sessions a week, weekly progress monitoring. Six to eight weeks of clean data will tell you far more than the battery would.
- Gather the other data now, in parallel - developmental and educational history, home-language literacy, work samples in both languages, classroom observation, teacher and parent interviews about skills in Spanish. None of this waits on the intervention.
- If the team still wants to evaluate by January, you can: evaluate in the areas that are not contaminated by English proficiency (e.g., phonological processing measures with demonstrated validity for Spanish-speaking learners), and use a bilingual or nonverbal cognitive measure with a qualified examiner. Consider also whether a speech-language or language-acquisition consultation answers the question faster.
What you say: "I can't defend a report that rests on five weeks of a mismatched intervention and English-only testing, and I'd be the one named in a hearing. Eight more weeks buys us data that will survive scrutiny - and if this is a disability, it will still be a disability in March."
Do not let the calendar decide eligibility. Deadlines are administrative; eligibility is a factual question.
3. Six weeks later the data still don't converge: strong Spanish decoding, weak English decoding, average nonverbal reasoning, and flat progress despite clean intervention. What now?
Read the worked answer
This is the profile that justifies a real evaluation - but of a specific question, not a generic "does he have SLD?"
- Name the question precisely. Is the problem (a) a within-language decoding deficit in Spanish as well, (b) cross-linguistic transfer that hasn't happened yet, or (c) a language difference being measured badly? Strong Spanish decoding plus weak English decoding in a student with 18 months of exposure points toward (b) or (c), not a global processing deficit.
- Select measures to answer that question. Spanish-language early literacy measures, English and Spanish phonological awareness and rapid naming, and a nonverbal cognitive measure. Compare patterns within each language, not the student's Spanish score to English norms.
- Use the discrepancy/pattern cautiously. Average nonverbal reasoning with depressed phonological processing in both languages is the pattern that supports an SLD; average reasoning with depressed English only is the pattern that supports language acquisition.
- Write the report so it answers the team's instructional question - what to teach, in which language, with what intensity - not just whether the box is checked.
- Bring the parents back in with the interpreter to review findings before the eligibility meeting. A surprise at the meeting is how schools lose trust they can't get back.