Students With Special Education Needs In Bilingual And Multilingual Education

Document Type

Book Chapter

Publication Date

12-2-2025

Published In

The Encyclopedia Of Applied Linguistics

Abstract

Students who have special education needs are educated in a variety of settings across the world, but are also often excluded from educational spaces, including within bilingual and multilingual education. In the United States, there are an estimated one million linguistically diverse students with special education needs (i.e., classified as needing both special education and English learner [EL] services). Although these students have both identified language learning needs and cultural ties to communities that use languages other than English (LOTE; e.g., immigrants, transnational families), they are often placed in English only or English mostly programs like English as a second/new language or transitional bilingual education. Rarely are these learners able to access multilingual development/maintenance programs. This exclusion often stems from faulty logics asserting that learning (in) multiple languages is a detriment to SWD academic needs due to the “added cognitive load.” However, racialized children, including US-born children of immigrant parents, lead rich linguistic lives outside of their English-medium schooling. Furthermore, denying students access to bilingual education stunts learners' academic development by reducing their opportunities to learn and limiting their community resources to those that can access and/or be accessed in English (e.g., homework support from non-English-using parents/caretakers). Diminished access to linguistic resources for students with special education needs also often leads to violations of student's rights while limiting their agency as well as that of their parents/caretakers. As such, it is important to understand who these dually classified (i.e., ELs with disabilities, ELs receiving special education services, EBLADs) students are, how educational and linguistic needs are evaluated, the subsequent educational placement process, as well as the instructional practices that teachers can use to support these students.

Keywords

disability, special education, English learners, bilingual education, students with disabilities

Published By

John Wiley and Sons

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