Assessment of Emergent Bilingual Students for an Intellectual Disability

This chapter describes and illustrates a culturally informed approach to the assessment of intellectual disability for emergent bilingual students within special education, especially in the context of historical definitions of disability, intelligence, and thriving in society. Practices related to the assessment and identification of intellectual disabilities have been notably controversial within U.S. special education. Emergent bilingual youth within this demographic are especially vulnerable, given the complexities of understanding their abilities within multilingual development. School psychologists must examine how cognitive assessments have been used to discriminate against minoritized and marginalized groups to avoid replicating harm. The proposed culturally and linguistically inclusive process aims to reduce bias and discriminatory action throughout the assessment stages: (1) Prevention, Intervention, and Referral; (2) Record Review; (3) Cognitive Assessment; (4) Adaptive Assessment; (5) Reporting Results and Deliberation; and (6) Interventions and Recommendations. This work offers a flexible, ecologically based approach to support multilingual and culturally humble school psychologists in assessing bilingual youth for an intellectual disability.