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Jackart, Laine

University of British Columbia

In Canada, there are currently no standardized national guidelines for the psychoeducational assessment of linguistically diverse individuals. It is the role of Canadian psychologists and psychological associates to adopt psychoeducational assessment practices that mitigate the historic over-referral to special education programs of students who are linguistically diverse, the misdiagnosis of these students, and the mismatch of educational services and supports to these students. The potential over-referral of these students for special education programming may be derived from a lack of understanding of language acquisition factors, an over-reliance on standardized tests with norms that may not reflect the diverse populations that psychologists are working with as well as a lack of standardized national assessment guidelines for practitioners to follow. This over-referral is a human rights issue and is potentially made worse by the lack of standardized guidelines, as these students may benefit more from the support of their language acquisition rather than special education services. In this study, an online survey of 73 practitioners conducting psychoeducational assessments for the purpose of supporting Canadian students was conducted to better understand what practices practitioners are employing when working with linguistically diverse clients. Respondents to the survey reported using a variety of assessment methods. Of the various assessment methods reported by surveyed practitioners, some align with the literature on ensuring appropriate assessment of linguistically diverse clients, while other do not.

Text

2024-10-17

Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International

http://hdl.handle.net/2429/89424

School and Applied Child Psychology

University of British Columbia

UBCV

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/