Ψ SCASP Ψ

What assessments are most useful for ELLs who are showing difficulty in the primary grades?

1) What are the critical areas/factors that need to be addressed by the psychologist in an ELL evaluation?  (What constitutes a good eval?)

2) Is there a "rule of thumb" for how long the student should be exposed to English prior to considering for special ed assessment?  What is the "back-up" info that can be used to justify waiting when we speak to the parents and/or teacher or special ed director? 

3) How does RtI fit into ELL assessment?

4) What are the most important features of a good translator?  What instructions/training should the psychologist give the translator?  Are translator and interpreter the same thing--what differentiates them? 

5) Is there a "rule of thumb" for how much the English speaking psych should do before calling in the primary language speaking psych? (What does the bililngual psych want/need to see before he/she takes on a case? What should/can the monolingual psych do to keep the costs of bilingual assessments down?)

--questions from Kathy Bregder

Good questions Kathy.

I hope others will add to this. 

Question from a member:

How much weight/analysis should we use when reviewing the child's CEDLT scores, for an initial assessment. I use them in my reports, but honestly, I don't know much about the CEDLT or how to measure if the child is making "adequate" growth, when it's not so obvious.

I would add - where do we get those scores?  I'm not sure the SLPs I work with administer it?  Is it a legal/necessary component that I should be asking the SLPs to do?

Teresa