Contemporary Issues in the Assessment of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse Learners

This article addresses issues faced by school psychologists when assessing students who are culturally and linguistically diverse (CLD). The authors describe the growing CLD population and legal requirements for assessment of CLD students for special education eligibility. Difficulties associated with referral and assessment procedures of CLD students and essential knowledge for examiners are explained, including second language acquisition at the level of basic interpersonal communication skills (BICS) and cognitive-academic language proficiency (CALP). Recommendations for the pre-referral process and assessment of CLD students are presented and discussed. This article will be useful for school psychologists who are unfamiliar with concepts and procedures for assessing second language learners. This article addresses current issues in the evaluation of students for whom English is not their primary language. For a number of reasons, the assessment of this group of learners is at the forefront of education in general and school psychology in particular. Some of these reasons include the recent increase in this population of students, difficulty finding examiners who are appropriately trained, and the challenge of finding and using appropriate assessment tools. Each of these issues will be addressed along with the laws related to the evaluation of these students and the steps that should be taken to ensure that the evaluation process is as valid and appropriate as possible.