English Learners with Significant Cognitive Disabilities: Reflecting on Diverse Needs and a Call to Advance Effective Practice
ABSTRACT
Historically, students who are English learners and students with disabilities have experienced inequitable schooling opportunities. These inequities are heightened when considering those individuals who are not only English learners but also have a significant cognitive disability. This particular dually classified group, while not large in number, is likely one of the most understudied and underserved school populations. Recently, researchers have begun trying to better identify these students for alternate assessment purposes. Despite more recent attention, educational research is still evolving and substantial gaps within the literature still exist. The purpose of this article is to provide a brief overview of contemporary educational issues while simultaneously providing recommendations for future researchers to enhance effective practices for this population. We attempt to define this group, which currently has no federal definition; describe their complex language needs; advocate for the use of appropriate blended educational frameworks; advocate for the need of inclusion in research studies; and, finally, argue for increased interdisciplinary research efforts.
Contributor Notes
Author Bio
Dr. Christopher Rivera is an associate professor of Special Education at East Carolina University. He is currently serving as the regional director of North Carolina’s New Teacher Support Program and is associate chair of the Department of Special Education, Foundations, and Research. His research interests are focused on working with students with significant cognitive disabilities, those who are also English learners, and utilizing technology to enhance the academic and functional skills of these populations.
Dr. Alba A. Ortiz is Professor Emerita, Department of Special Education, at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research interests focus on culturally and linguistically responsive multitiered systems of support for English learners, distinguishing language differences from disabilities, and programs and services for English learners with language and learning disabilities.
Laurene Christensen is the director of Accessibility Research for the WIDA Consortium. She is also the project director for the Advancing Alternate English Language Proficiency Assessment (Advancing ALTELLA) grant, a federally funded project designed to update the WIDA Alternate ACCESS for ELLs. Laurene holds a PhD in Comparative and International Development Education from the University of Minnesota.
James Mitchell is an inclusion researcher at WIDA and focuses on English learners with disabilities and their participation in English language proficiency assessment, including alternate assessment. He holds an MA in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and a BA in Applied Linguistics from Portland State University.
