We did a case study about a girl who had a very tough background who was being considered for an IEP. She came from Mexico, had no formal schooling, and barely spoke Spanish but didn't know English at all when she came to the United States.
When the group met to discuss her IEP, it seemed they weren't really measuring her cognitive ability, it seemed they were more focused on her mastery of the English language. It seemed that if they were really interested in measuring her cognitive ability, they would test her in her native language.
It was really hard to understand the case and to know the details of what was discussed since we didn't have a copy of the discussions, but it made me more aware of how careful we must be when making judgements on the cognitive abilities of children.
We want to give them every opportunity to succeed and I hope that when schools follow the guidelines for setting up an IEP, that they are doing everything they can to ensure a correct diagnosis of problems and a good solution to most help the student succeed.
No comments:
Post a Comment