The Special Education Referral and Decision-Making Process for English Language Learners: Child Study Team Meetings and Placement Conferences

By J. Klingner, B. Harry. Teachers College Record, 2006

198 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The purpose of this study was to examine the special education referral and decisionmaking process for English language learners (ELLs), with a focus on Child Study Team (CST) meetings and placement conferences/multidisciplinary team meetings. We wished to learn how school personnel determined if ELLs who were struggling had disabilities, to what extent those involved in the process understood second language acquisition, and whether language issues were considered when determining special education eligibility. We observed CST meetings and placement conferences for 19 students who were considered ELLs when they were referred. Findings revealed that in practice, only cursory attention was given to prereferral strategies. Most students were pushed toward testing, based on an assumption that poor academic performance or behavioral difficulties had their origin within the child and indicated a need for special education. Although some school personnel were quite knowledgeable about language issues, many were not. There was tremendous variation in the quality of what transpired during meetings. These differences were influenced by the intentions, knowledge, skills, and commitment of CST or multidisciplinary team members. All the factors we describe point to aspects of the process that should be improved.

Subfields: Clinical Psychology, Developmental and Educational Psychology, Education

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In Clinical Psychology

In Developmental and Educational Psychology

In Education

Citations in the corpus

The Miner’s Canary (2010, background): “In contrast to the general trend of the whole data set, most of these studies (3) had qualitative designs, using interviews, transcripts of meetings, and observational data for the analyses (Klingner & Harry, 2006; Knotek, 2003, Rogers, 2002).”
Universal Screening for Behavioral and Emotional Risk: A Promising Method for Reducing Disproportionate Placement in Special Education (2012, result): “Their research has been subsequently replicated and expanded since their initial findings, yielding similar results (Gartner & Kerzner Lipsky, 1987; Gottlieb & Alter, 1994; Gottlieb et al., 1990; Klingner & Harry, 2006).”
Disproportionality in Special Education: Effects of Individual and School Variables on Disability Risk (2013, background): “Previous research has tended to consider distinct professionals (e.g., school psychologists, referring general education teachers) rather than the team process in which they are engaged (for an exception, see Klingner & Harry, 2006).”