Overrepresentation: An Overview of the Issues Surrounding the Identification of English Language Learners with Learning Disabilities.
This paper addresses the serious and pervasive problem of the mis identification of English Language Learners (ELLs) as Learning Disabled (LD) Recent increases in immigration make this problem all the more urgent. The paper outlines problems with current methods of differentiating between learning disabilities and language acquisition processes. These problems come in part from apparent similarities between learning struggles and language struggles and in part from insufficient or biased methods of identifying learning disabilities in ELLs. Misunderstanding, bias, and poor structuring and implementation affect both assessment based evaluations and the Response to Intervention evaluation process. The paper goes on to suggest more effective methods that include consideration of the home and learning environments in addition to evaluation of the individual learner.