“They put me in special ed when I started school. They thought I couldn’t learn, but it was because I didn’t speak English.”

During a conversation with a friend, he shared with me his experience 30+ years ago in kindergarten. During the first week of school, my friend was taken out of his regular class and placed in a separate, segregated class for students with special needs. As an ESL (English as a Second Language) teacher and a parent of bilingual children, I was shocked. And yet, upon research, I found that the tendency to over-identify students who speak a language besides English as having learning disabilities is more common than we’d like to think.

Misidentifying ELL students and placing them into the wrong class obviously can hinder our children from reaching their potential, but also diverts necessary resources from students with actual disabilities and needs. In my friend’s case: he was bored, didn’t understand his teacher or his classmates, and began misbehaving in class. The school spent a year labeling my friend as defiant and troubled, until finally a new teacher came in who recognized my friend’s strengths and worked with him to help improve his English.

On the flip side, there are true English language learners (ELLs), who do have learning differences that might need attention — whose needs are not met solely in the regular classroom. School sometimes overlook ELL students either because of lack of funding for special education programs, fear of litigation from parents, or lack of knowledge about bilingual students (especially in districts without a lot of ELL students).

From the time we first adopted my son from China at age 3 1/2, he had some difficulties in speech. Different well-meaning teachers, doctors and therapists have mentioned that “maybe” we would want to hold off on speaking Spanish to him until he got English (we didn’t stop) later, in elementary school, others have blamed his difficulties in reading on his ELL status.

Blaming his language background meant that some red flags — that would normally indicate reading issues — were overlooked. Despite my rumblings, my son was not tested for dyslexia or learning disabilities, and not accepted into a special reading program. I was told that his reading fluency (how quickly, accurately, automatically and expressively someone reads) was slow because he was still mastering English (and Spanish).

Fortunately, I am an ESL teacher (though normally my students are older). As his mom, I saw his struggles and recognized that these were not the common difficulties that ELL and bilingual learners experience. With a mother’s love and instinct, and a teacher’s nagging doubt, I pushed and insisted that there was something else going on besides his language learning history. Today, I am happy to report that my son is getting the resources and support he needs from the reading specialist, after assessments have finally indicated that his struggles with reading are not because he is an ELL student.

I have learned many lessons through my journey as both an ESL teacher and as a parent. The number one lesson for parents is to be your child’s number one advocate. You are reading with your children every night, you are helping them with their homework, and you observe if there are tears and impossible challenges in everyday work. If you feel in your gut that your child isn’t “getting” something that they should be able to master after practice — it is your right to request that he or she be tested and resources be made available (even if they are still in ELL classes!). Students from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds should receive the support and programs they need in order to be successful learners.

At the same time, if you feel that your child has been misidentified as learning disabled because of his bilingual background, ask how their native language was taken into account during the assessments; ask for a second opinion from a district specialist with experience assessing ELLs; ask for six more months of focused English help before they are tested for a learning disability. Bilingual students who are still working on English and are mistakenly placed in special education programs will have more limited access to rigorous curricula, have lower expectations for academic potential, and will not be spending sufficient time learning English as needed to become fully bilingual.

Disproportionate representation of ELL students in special needs categories is a huge problem and barrier to their success (whether because they are in special ed and shouldn’t be or because they are not getting the specialized services they need). While most schools are trying their best, it is our job as parents to advocate for the best possible learning experience for our kids. As a team, parents and teachers can work together to find the most effective program and environment for our bilingual children.

Do you have an experience being mislabeled or being denied services for yourself or your child due to your linguistic background? How did you over come the challenge?

{Photo courtesy of Becky Morales}

It’s spring, which means it’s IEP season again. Time to get together with a team made up of my boys’ teachers, special education teacher, speech therapist, occupational therapist, the school psychologist and a school administrator or two and reevaluate the school year. We will talk about how much progress my sons have made in reaching the goals we set for them last year and decide on new ones for next year.

This year, only half an hour has been blocked off for each meeting, but when the boys transitioned into a regular-education setting in kindergarten, we were there for almost four hours. I’ve left some IEP meetings feeling pretty good about things; once, I had to pull the car over on the way home afterwards because I was crying too hard to see the road.

Either way, these meetings are intense. I’ve realized that I find them draining because really, the meetings are mostly spent discussing what are euphemistically called your child’s “areas of need.” This is logical: the areas in which your child needs support need to be broken down in detail in order for him or her to continue to receive the most appropriate services. There’s also a section called “present levels of performance,” in which the child’s strengths are listed.

But even when there’s so much good, even when you feel encouraged by how much progress your child has made, talking about your child’s needs in such detail can be exhausting. Especially when you add it to everything else that’s already going on — behavioral issues, emails to teachers, calls to see if the child psychiatrist has had any cancellations because you urgently need to see him.

Last week, I participated in a SpanglishBaby LIVE hangout on bilingualism and children with special needs. Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz, a fellow mother of a special-needs child, said something that particularly resonated with me because I’ve often thought the same thing: There are many reasons that I think learning Spanish is great for my children, but given the many challenges they face, one especially cool thing about it is that it gives them something at which they excel.

A few weeks ago, I picked the boys up at their Saturday Spanish school and their teacher wanted to speak to me. She was having a hard time keeping them busy, she explained. They finished their work quickly and she couldn’t get to them while she was busy helping other children. She wanted to move them up a grade. She had already spoken to the second-grade teacher and it was a done deal, if I agreed to it.

Read more: How to Raise Bilingual Kids with Special Needs

As I expected, my change-averse boys balked at the very idea at first. I tried to play it up, and even after I promised that they could go back if they didn’t like it after they’d tried it, they were skeptical. After the first class, though, they changed their tune.  They couldn’t get over the fact that in their regular school they were in first grade, but at Spanish school they were now in second grade. They loved their teacher and gleefully showed me the plastic figurines they’d used to learn about animals. And I was tickled when they bragged that they’d learned all of the pronombres personales, singular and plural, and proceeded to recite them to me. I never heard another word about wanting to go back to their old class.

As they get older, some things get tougher at school. Other children are increasingly aware of their quirks and when I visit the school they’re not shy about asking me about them. For now, they’re more curious than anything, but I worry about teasing or possible bullying to come. But also for now, Spanish school is their safe place, a place where there’s no pressure, no IEPs. And I love that, and am very grateful.

{Photo courtesy of Kim Lane}

Watch our SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout on Bilingualism & Children with Special Needs:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atqgFndE53A

We’re getting everything ready for our third SpanglishBaby LIVE Google+ Hangout and we’d love for you to join us tomorrow. This time around we’re discussing bilingualism and children with special needs. For those of you who’ve never joined a Google+ Hangout, you should know that it’s just like hanging out with a bunch of friends, except that you’re not all in the same room.

In case you missed them, in our first Hangout we discussed dual language immersion programs and in our second one we talked about the very popular concern most parents raising bilingual children have at one point of their journey: the rebellion stage — when your kids refuse to speak to you in Spanish. Ana and I are loving how these are turning out and we’re looking forward to many more episodes to come!

WHAT: In our third Hangout we’ll be discussing whether or not it’s possible to raise bilingual children with special needs and we hope to dispel a few myths along the way.

WHEN: Tuesday, March. 12 at 1 p.m. EST.

WHO: Joining Ana and I will be Gabriela Simon-Cereijido, a bilingual speech-language pathologist at California State Universtiy, Los Angeles — and three moms of children with special needs:

Kim Lane, our regularly month contributor, who is the mother of 7-year-old twin boys, both of whom have special needs and are in full-time special education programs.

Eliana Tardio a mother of two children with Down syndrome who promotes bilingualism as a tool for stimulating learning and development in kids with special needs.

Paula Bendfeldt-Diaz whose daughter speaks in both English and Spanish and being diagnosed with autism has not stopped her from communicating in both languages. Paula is the founder of www.GrowingUpBilingual.com.

There are many ways for you to be part of this Google Hangout online.

1. First of all, RSVP on the event page.

2. Add the SpanglishBaby Google+ Page to your Circles.

3. On Tuesday, March 12, starting at 1 p.m. EST, the SpanglishBaby Live Hangout will go on air and you’ll be able to watch it on the event page and on our YouTube channel.

4. The hashtag for all our SpanglishBaby Live Hangouts is #BilingualKids and you can use it on Google+, Twitter or Instagram and we’ll find you!

5. Once the Hangout is over, a recording of it will be made available for all to view, share and/or embed on the SpanglishBaby YouTube channel.

If you’d like to have your question related to raising bilingual and/or bicultural kids answered by ourselves or one of our experts, please fill out this form. If you’re interested in participating in one of our SpanglishBaby Live Google+ Hangouts, you’ll be able to let us know in the form too.

If you want to learn more about Google+ Hangouts On Air, check out this page. Feel free to leave us any questions or suggestions in the comments area below, on the event page or our Google+ page and Community!

UPDATE

Below is the full Hangout. We learned a lot!

Almost a month has passed since el quince de septiembre, Costa Rican Independence day. That weekend I set up a meeting point with a good friend, also a tica, gathered up my sons and our Metro cards and we trekked up to the Costa Rican Embassy in Washington, D.C. to check out the festivities, the third year in a row we’ve done so.

I can always bribe my children with a ride on the bus or the Metro, because there are few things they love as much as taking the Metro somewhere. So they were excited to go this year…but not as excited to stay. The embassy isn’t really big enough to accommodate the crowd that gathers every year. There were tons of people and no room to walk around. The music was loud. The line for the food was unbelievably long. For my two autistic boys, it was simply too much. Secondo spent most of the time we were in line humming to himself loudly in order to block out the noise. Primo dealt with it by occasionally sprawling out on the ground and staying there — and I let him.  We got our food, and I got my much-needed Imperial beer. We stayed long enough to sing the himno nacional and then headed back home.

I have many memories of my parents going to great lengths to make U.S. culture, history and politics come alive for my brother and me when we lived in Costa Rica back in the eighties. We often spent the Fourth of July at the U.S. Embassy, where we sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” ate hot dogs and ran sack races. We all got to break the No-TV-During-Dinner rule and watch CNN if a major story was breaking. My father — a staunch Democrat — dragged us out of school and took us to the embassy so that we could hear both George H. W. Bush and Dan Quayle speak on official visits, because there was no way we were going to pass up the opportunity to hear the President and Vice President speak.

I’ve always dreamed about doing similar things with my boys. We are lucky to live in an area with such a wealth of cultures, where embassies hold all kinds of events and it seems like a festival is going on every weekend. And while I knew that doing these things would not be feasible at first, with two babies and a bulky double stroller, I looked forward to the day when we could do them.

Once the double stroller and diapers were history, we started going places…with mixed results. An afternoon at the Museum of Natural History ended with an epic meltdown within minutes of our arrival, so we played outside instead. And now the meltdowns are fewer because Primo and Secondo are increasingly able to express themselves more articulately. I recently showed Secondo a flyer advertising a Hispanic Heritage Month event. Music! Dancing! Typical foods! it proclaimed. Secondo looked at it for a moment. “No quiero ir,” he told me.  “There will be too many people and it will be too noisy.” I was shocked — for years I’ve struggled to guess what he’s thinking and what he wants, and this time his wishes were crystal clear. I’ve longed for communication like this more than just about anything. Needless to say, I respected his wishes. We bagged the Hispanic Heritage Month Festival.

I hope as they get older they will find these events more enjoyable. They may or may not. As for the embassy next year, although there was something I loved about singing the himno nacional together, I’ve decided we won’t go if they don’t want to. But I will dig out my old copy of Lo que se canta en Costa Rica and maybe we can learn the himno at home.

{photo by  thombo2}

When my first child was born, I was immediately warned that I shouldn’t expose a child with special needs to two languages. The reasons were that:

— Their speech development will slow down from trying to learn two languages

— Their brains don’t have the capacity to make the switch from one language to another

— They are already challenged with the disability, so I shouldn’t add an unnecessary challenge to their lives

I immigrated to this country just weeks before my first son was born. Although I had a college degree in English, I was still in the process of adjusting and improving my English when all this happened. Actually, eight years later, I’m still learning.

It’s common to hear that kids get confused when they are exposed to two languages at the same time. So just imagine how complicated it is to decide to raise children with special needs bilingually, especially when you’re surrounded by people who don’t believe in bilingualism.

Down syndrome is the most common genetic disorder in the world, but the high incidence doesn’t make it any easier to make decisions on how to educate your child and what to expect from him. Raising him bilingual was a must for me, but an impossible fantasy for the specialists.

But fantasies can come true!

I never stopped speaking in Spanish to my child. Spanish became his first language, so by the age of 1 his first words obviously came in Spanish.

His speech was evaluated at the age of 18 months and the outcome was very poor. One more time, the speech therapist reminded me of her warning to only speak English at home. I didn’t give up but she did, telling me that she didn’t have the tools or knowledge to provide therapy to a child who was being raised bilingual.

I knew I was doing the right thing and that his speech was progressing. My decision wasn’t the real problem; it was instead the lack of resources in my community. Many times we were rejected at therapy centers for not speaking English at home.

But my question was still the same: Why do I have to speak only English to my child and forfeit his right to be bilingual? Giving a child more opportunities to learn is not hurting him; it is opening his world to new challenges that will make him grow and succeed, regardless of his abilities.

School Readiness At 3-Years-Old

As with many children with special needs, my son started school at the age of three. Since the very first day, he understood and followed along in class with no problems. His teachers didn’t speak Spanish and he never had problems understanding English. That’s the time when, as a parent, you realize you are not making a mistake, and that communication is something much bigger than language.

The more you expect from your child, the more you will get from him. It’s not about pushing him to do the impossible, but empowering him to go through the natural experience of learning. For children of bilingual families, being bilingual is natural.

My second child was born when my son was almost ready to start school. She was also born with Down syndrome. At that time, I didn’t have doubts about how to raise her. I was sure she would be bilingual. In her favor, she was born in an established family with an experienced mother, so her bilingual development was outstanding since the beginning.

She learned all her words in English and Spanish. The interaction with her brother was the best stimulation and the best connection with English, as were community activities such as going to the park or library as well as the daily exposure when doing typical activities in our neighborhood. By the time she started school, her integration was smooth and easy.

Today, Emir is 8 and Ayelen is 5. Both are still in the process of learning to talk and they are doing great. They speak English, Spanish and sometimes, Spanglish. The most amazing thing is that they know exactly where to use each of them. They communicate at school only in English and at home they use both.

If you are raising a bilingual child with special needs, my best advice is:

— Take it easy and give him time to process and start showing progress

— Understand that you can’t force him to speak Spanish, as his brain will probably pick the easier word, either in English or Spanish

— The main goal is still to improve his communication, and this may be a life-long task that you have to enjoy and celebrate

— The best way to enjoy teaching bilingualism is to keep speaking, reading and interacting with your children in Spanish

Assuming the challenge of raising bilingual kids with special needs is a worthy adventure.

Eliana Tardío is an advocate and activist for Down syndrome. She works as a Family Specialist for the Early intervention program of the State of Florida, and her work has been nationally and internationally highlighted for her passion and dedication on beating the myths, building up opportunities of inclusion for children with special needs. This article is a part of her Awareness carnival to celebrate Down syndrome awareness month.

Photo by rahego

Due to both my location (the wonderfully diverse Washington, D.C. area) and my occupation (Spanish interpreter), I have many friends who are also raising bilingual children. They are my support group, and when we get together the conversation invariably turns to our children’s bilingualism, our experiences and challenges.

I was chatting with one such friend and we started discussing the deluge of English in schools, how it will be hard to keep the Spanish going at home, how we’ll have to find a way to teach our children literacy skills in Spanish. And I made a comment, I don’t remember exactly how I put it, but it was something like, “Well, of course I want my kids to be able to read and write in Spanish, but if they don’t learn to do it all that well, I’ll be okay with that.”

“Not me,” my friend replied. “I’m going to make sure my daughter learns well enough that she can go to college in Latin America if she wants to.” Her response was so immediate and unequivocal that it took me by surprise.

That conversation took place a while ago, but it’s stuck with me. I remember going home afterward and doing a lot of soul searching. I was so impressed by my friend’s conviction—and I have no doubt she will succeed either—but it made me ask myself, shouldn’t my convictions be that firm, too? After all, I’m not in this halfheartedly, and I sure am trying my darnest to teach my boys Spanish. Why did I make such a wishy-washy comment? What are my goals, exactly, and how do we reach them?

Part of it, I realized, was that I remember very clearly what it was like learning Spanish as a child in the U.S. Or rather, I remember when I started to rebel against it. My friends didn’t speak it, it made me stand out, I had an accent and often couldn’t come up with the words I needed. Sometimes I wonder how well I would speak Spanish if my parents hadn’t packed up and moved us to Costa Rica when I was eight, and I wonder what my boys’ rebellion will look like when they reach that age. Right now, they’re four and I’m doing everything I can to make Spanish fun and enjoyable, but I also wonder how much I’m prepared to force the issue when they’re older.

Part of it is that I can be disorganized and I’m not much of a planner. Often, I’m just fine with winging it or going with the flow. I don’t think it had even occurred to me to set any goals.

And part of it is more complicated than that. Secondo has autism, and I’m constantly trying to strike a difficult balance because, as his mother, my job is to believe that he can do anything and help him along the way. And I do. But autism is a part of our reality. I refuse to believe that it limits him, but it’s been a game-changer, for sure. I need to be optimistic, but I need to be realistic, though being realistic cannot be synonymous with having lowered expectations. And all of it can mess with my mind sometimes.

What it boils down to for me is that I can’t think too far ahead. As cliché as it sounds, I need to take it one day at a time. When it comes to Secondo, I have way too little information I can use to make decisions about things that lie too far in the future. Right now I’m only thinking as far as meetings at school next week to talk about what his situation will be in September.

Which, in a way, is very liberating. At first, whenever I worried too much about the future, it paralyzed me completely (which it can still do, if I let myself dwell on things). But somehow, my perspective changed along the way. I’ve discovered I quite like being grounded in the present—for one thing, I can enjoy the present so much more.

I read about all kinds of wonderful Spanish immersion schools (often on this site), enrolling my children in such a program would have been a no-brainer before. In fact, I had my heart set on it, and I was prepared to convince or confront my husband about it if I needed to. Now I have no idea if that will be an option. That thought truly saddened me not too long ago, but now, it’s easy to shrug my shoulders about the whole thing. The only thing that matters is that Secondo is in the right school for him. Whether or not it’s an immersion program is not even important.

My new philosophy does not, however, mean that I will stop giving it all I’ve got when it comes to teaching him Spanish, but I will focus on today. Today, Secondo and I read stories in Spanish. Today, he played Juguemos en el bosque with his Abuelita, requested macarrones con queso for dinner and said ¡NO QUIERO! ¡NO QUIERO! ¡NO QUIERO! when I tried to make him take a bath. Today, Secondo sounded out a three-letter word—in English. And I really do believe he will be sounding out words in Spanish, too. It won’t be today, though—but maybe tomorrow.

Photo by tibchris

We hope you’ve been enjoying reading about our first three regular contributors. In case you haven’t had a chance to “meet” them, so far we’ve introduced you to Chelsea (a single, non-native Spanish speaker raising her son bilingual); Susan (another non-native Spanish speaker raising her two boys trilingual); and Elsie (a Latina raising her daughter bilingual who has promised to share her abuela’s recipes with all of us!).

Today we’d like you to get to know Kim who brings a completely different perspective to the subject of raising bilingual children and one where there is a lot of confusion and contradicting information – raising children with special needs to become bilingual. We’re thrilled to have her on board because we strongly believe in providing all of you with credible information. Thanks for being willing to share your trials and triumphs, Kim!

Kimberly Stevens Lane was born to a Costa Rican mother and an American father and was raised in both countries.  She is the mother of four-year-old twin boys, both of whom have special needs and are in full-time special education programs.  She has a Master of Arts degree in Conference Interpretation and is a freelance translator and interpreter in the Washington, D.C. area.

Raising Bilingual Children: An Awesome Challenge

I had it all planned out. I always knew that I wanted my children to grow up speaking Spanish, years before I had them, before I even knew who I would marry. When I married a Midwesterner who spoke not a lick of Spanish, I knew we would use the one-parent, one-language method. At the time, I don’t think I even knew what OPOL meant. I just knew it was what my parents had done in our household, and that it worked for them. When I learned I was pregnant with twins, I was ecstatic. We had two boys that we call Primo and Secondo.

So we did OPOL at home. I spoke to my children in Spanish, my husband in English. We built up a library of books in Spanish that we read every day. Except Secondo didn’t seem too interested in talking. He was more interested in rolling his toy cars back and forth, over and over. When he did speak, he was echolalic—he parroted whatever we said back to us. He rarely made eye contact or responded when I said his name. All of these things became increasingly difficult to ignore.  A few months before his third birthday, we found ourselves in a drab room with two-way mirrors and a bunch of doctors holding clipboards.  Then the child psychiatrist diagnosed my boy with autism and people scrambled to pass me the tissues.

I’m a little foggy on some of the details of that day, but I had one moment of clarity. As we walked back down the hallway to her office, I asked “What do you think about the fact that I speak to Secondo in Spanish?” I still remember exactly how I phrased the question. Not, “Do you think I should?” or “Should I stop?” And I remember her answer. “Oh, it’s absolutely wonderful,” she said, and her demeanor was dreamy, almost zen-like. “It will create so many new pathways in his brain. You can’t even imagine.” That was all the encouragement I needed. I knew, even then, that I would not have stopped even if she had suggested it. I knew that I had to keep speaking to Secondo in Spanish and see what happened.

Raising a bilingual child can be challenging and autism added an entirely new element to that challenge. Secondo had some significant speech delays as well. The school system evaluated his speech when he was 30 months old and the results were sobering. He tested as low as in the six-month range in some areas. And so he started preschool and we entered the world of special education. Language acquisition lost some of its spontaneity. Instead, we had specific goals–goals that were written out in his Individualized Education Program, a legal document.

It was more than a little intimidating, but we broke things down and took baby steps. Goal number one, for example, was to teach Secondo how to ask for what he wanted, as his inability to do that led to constant meltdowns. So for months, at home and at school, we worked on “I want x or y, please.” I thought that if he could learn to do that, he could just as easily learn to say, “Quiero tal cosa, por favor.”  Progress was slow, especially in the beginning, but there was progress.

I am far from an expert on bilingualism and special needs. It feels presumptuous to list what I’ve learned, but I have learned a few lessons along the way.

• Every child is different. I’m going to fall back on two sayings that are popular in special education.  One, if you’ve met one child with autism, you’ve met…one child with autism. You just can’t generalize when it comes to children with special needs—or any child, for that matter. Two, you are the expert when it comes to your child. I’ve largely followed my instincts and they have steered me the right way.

• You will find a lot of conflicting information out there. When I googled bilingualism and special needs, what I found made my head spin. The information boiled down to: “Yes! Teaching your special-needs child a second language is great!” And also, “No! Don’t do it!  It’s too much!” This made me throw my hands up and trust my instincts.

• What you do at home matters. I was despondent when I sent Secondo to preschool when he was only two years old, because that hadn’t been in our plans. I feared English would take over once he started school, but it just hasn’t been an issue.

• A support system is essential. You know how I just said you’re the expert? The other experts—teachers, psychiatrists, speech therapists—are all invaluable. They show me new ways of doing things. They encourage me. They are a part of our team, and they feel like family. And they all think that it’s wonderful that Secondo’s learning Spanish. Support at home is no less important. I’m lucky to have a husband who’s in this with me all the way and thinks raising the boys to be bilingual is as important as I do. Without him, it would be much harder.

And finally, never, ever underestimate your child. It’s only been a little over a year since Secondo was diagnosed, and he still has many delays, but he gets it. It’s taken a lot of work, but he understands that Mama knows Spanish and Daddy knows English. He loves music and books in both languages. Recently, he came sobbing to me because his brother wouldn’t play with him. “You have to tell him, ven conmigo,” I explained, trying to put it simply. He walked over to his brother and said, “Primo, ¡ven conmigo a jugar con el tren!” I was bowled over.

It may not be working out exactly as I had planned. But it’s definitely working. And my boys surprise me every day.

We’re so lucky to have all our new contributors because we’re sure they’ll be teaching all of us lots of new ways of looking at bilingualism. We hope you’ll come back tomorrow to meet our fifth, and final, regular contributor.