The Bilingual Extension Institute - LEADERSproject

The over-referral of bilingual and culturally diverse children to special education and related services is a pressing challenge in public school systems. Not only are unnecessary or inappropriate services a drain on resources, but they are harmful to the child, taking him or her away from the classroom and inevitably stigmatizing the child. In addition, an incorrect diagnosis may mean that the child does not receive the services he or she does need.

We speech-language pathologists evaluate bilingual and culturally diverse children who are having academic difficulties, We are "on the front lines" in making the crucial differential diagnosis between a disorder and something else. This "something else" could have a cultural basis, such as a mismatch between demands of school and home or linguistic factors, for example the normal process of second language acquisition. Add in cultural and linguistic biases in traditional assessment tools and methods and we can readily see the need for the clinician to a have a sophisticated and specialized knowledge base. Without this knowledge base, bilingual clinicians cannot make informed decisions about the services needed by these children.

The Bilingual Extension Institute at Teachers College Columbia University provides clinicians with the knowledge and skills to make these differential diagnoses and provide appropriate services. The bilingual extension certificate requirement of the State Education Department recognizes the need