The effect of English language proficiency and acculturation on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities, Third Edition performance: In a Haitian-Creole sample

The present study investigated the effect of English language proficiency and acculturation on the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Abilities- Third Edition (WJ III COG: Woodcock et. al, 2001) performance. Understanding these effects will allow school psychologists to incorporate non-discriminatory assessment methods into their practices that will assist in the prevention of unnecessary classification of Limited English Proficient (LEP) children as special education students. It is hypothesized and found that LEP students with lower levels of English Language Proficiency and acculturation performed below the mean of tests of cognitive abilities that are highly culturally loaded and linguistically demanding. Seventy students classified as Limited English Proficient, who were bilingual in English and Haitian---Creole were recruited from two metropolitan and suburban school districts for this study. During the Spring of 2012, they were given the extended battery of the WJ III COG to measure General Intellectual Ability (GIA), and the Acculturation Quick Screen, Third Edition (AQS III; Collier, 2010) to measure English language proficiency and acculturation. A strong relationship between these measures showed that lower levels of language proficiency and lower levels of acculturation showed below the mean performances on the WJ III. Those with lower levels of language proficiency and acculturation differed significantly in performance from those with higher levels of language proficiency and acculturation. The data validated that English language proficiency and acculturation not only have a significant bearing on the overall General Intellectual Ability, but also have an impact on subtests which are culturally loaded and linguistically demanding based on the Test-Specific Culture Language Matrix of Cultural Loading and Linguistic Demand Classifications of the WJ III Subtests (Flanagan et al, 2007). These findings support that English language proficiency and acculturation should be thoroughly considered and evaluated when making decisions regarding the services provided to LEP students. When these factors are fully understood and taken into account, the findings suggest that erroneous classifications will decrease in the education system.