ESL issues or a Learning disability

[ireland620]

I am hoping someone can help me...I am currently a member of CSE. Our district has a growing ESL population, with this comes a number of referrals from gen ed teachers for ESL students suspected of having a disability.

Bilingual evaluations are completed, but the question is never answered-whether or not a disability exists. The WISC IV is completed, but it states it isn't reliable due to norms. The evaluation will state what language is more dominant, however that is about it. The scores come out lower, which is expected.

Some students are not proficient in either language. Others are academically proficient in English, yet the native language at home is Spanish. Can anyone offer suggestions how they determine whether or not a disability exists?

[Unregistered]

If a student is not proficient in his native language as well as English then he or she is possibly demonstrating a language impairment and should be referred to a speech-language pathologist for speech language testing.