| The increasing diversity in public schools presents unique challenges for school psychologists who are called upon to conduct fair and equitable assessments of English Learner (EL) students. However, there is a shortage of qualified and competent bilingual/bicultural school psychologists (Ochoa, Rivera, & Ford, 1997; Ochoa et al., 2004). Therefore, it is important that all school psychologists understand how language and culture influence EL students' test results because improper assessment often leads to inaccurate classification as disabled and overrepresentation in special education programs (Artiles & Trent, 1994; Artiles, Rueda, Salazar, & Higareda, 2005). The Culture-Language Test Classifications (C-LTC) and the Culture-Language Interpretive Matrix (C-LIM) provide practitioners with a new frame of reference for test selection and interpretation, as well as a systematic and defensible method for evaluating the impact of cultural and linguistic influences on testing (Flanagan, Ortiz, & Alfonso, 2007). The purpose of this study is to determine the extent to which the C-LIM might be used to distinguish cultural and linguistic differences from disorders in cases of Learning Disability as well as-suspected Speech-Language Impairment. |
