Trends in Bilingual Special Education

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Abstract
Handicapped children who are also limited-English proficient (LEP) have generally not been served adequately in the schools. Few practitioners are trained to diagnose and treat culturally and linguistically different children. Furthermore, in school systems which have resisted bilingual programs, special education has been enlisted to carry out the ignominious task of segregating LEP children from mainstream classrooms. As a result, a curious placement pattern has occurred whereby some LEP handicapped children are underserved whereas many normals are placed in special education. The traditional reluctance on the part of special education to recruit minority professionals and its separation from regular and bilingual education have stood in the way of progress. Nevertheless, a number of teacher training institutions have received grants to institute rudimentary bilingual special education programs with courses designed to bridge these gaps. Research developments also suggest that bilingual special education may emerge as a viable specialty within special education.

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