Bias in Diagnosis: Children at Risk

South West Media Productions presents Bias and Diagnosis Children at Risk. The testing and placement of minority children in special education classes became an issue of alarm and debate nationally in the 60s. In 1968, a study published by Jane Mercer in Riverside, California revealed that black and Spanish serenade children were overlabeled and more likely to be placed in classes for the mentally retarded. I went to elementary school in a town in southeastern New Mexico. My father came over in the Brasero program. They couldn't deal with me. They didn't have the facilities or the abilities or the consciousness to deal with anybody who did not speak English. So as a consequence, they decided that I was mentally retarded as it were. And I was put in this special education program with children who were severely handicapped.

I'm talking kids who were paralyzed, kids who were just severely handicapped. I would look at them, I would look at myself, and I would say, wait a minute, something's I'm not like them, why am I here? Sir Francis Galton, Darwin's cousin is credited with being the father of individual psychology and mental measurement. He is also considered one of the initial promoters of the eugenics movement. Galton felt that individuals with high aptitudes should be identified through tests and allowed to have children. On the other hand, less fit individuals, he thought, should not be allowed to conceive. In 1904, Alfred Benet and a colleague published the first scale for determining intelligence. Although Benet developed a test that was to predict academic success, the test was soon adopted for other purposes, namely to make educational and social economic decisions

about children's futures. It is interesting to know that Benet himself, cautioned professionals to spare undeserving students from assignments to special schools. Dr. Eloy Gonzalez, professor of special education, University of New Mexico. The Stanford Benet is the grandfather of IQ test. The Benet is very high, weighs very highly on verbal skill. It is interesting to note that when the Benet was first brought to this country, it was translated into English and administered directly to individuals in this country, in English. It was administered to minority children here, to Hispanics Indians, black children, who did not have the competent English skills, and an individual, well, there are a couple of people involved with this, whose term was one of them, derived from those scores that the Hispanics were inferior, and to the point of saying that genetically inferior, this

same concept or the same test was then utilized by our own federal government on Ellis Island to screen out at that point what they call the feeble winded, and administering this same test in English, by the way, to Germans and Jewish and Russian populations. Those individuals, of course, not having the English language skills scored very low, consequently the U.S. government set quotas and returned many of these people back, saying that the large percentage over more feeble winded, and I'm talking about percentages about 80 and 90 percent. So that test, which is highly verbal, has remained with us, it is still here. At the core of the testing debate is the concept of intelligence, what is it? Is it the same in all cultures, is it a fixed property, and how do environmental conditions affect it?

An IQ is really a score that someone achieves on an intelligence test. And intelligence tests, again, there are probably 20, possibly more types of tests. They all measure different things. If we look at intelligence itself, intelligence is said to be made up of over 120 different factors or variables that make up intelligence. The WISCAR, the most popular of the IQ test, is said to measure perhaps 12 of these 120 factors. So you see that IQ test tap a very small sample of actually what a person is capable of doing or innate intelligence if you want. And therefore, when we look at an IQ score, we assume that that is what that person is capable of doing and is capable of achieving and will most likely never achieve anything higher than that.

The thing we have to keep in mind is that IQ tests, again, are a very limited measure of an individual's current level of functioning skills. And depending on who wrote the test and what is on it, that is going to be a limiting factor. IQ tests that are composed primarily of a lot of verbal items, the individual that is perhaps not as verbal or an individual who is linguistically different will consequently not do well on that test. And therefore, that IQ score then reflects or it is interpreted to reflect that the individual is less intelligent than say someone who is more verbal or who has more exposure to the English language. Dr. Leonard Baaka, Director of the Multicultural Center, University of Colorado at Boulder. The difference between IQ and intelligence has been part of this general problem that we've been facing.

An intelligence quotient or IQ is simply a way of deriving some kind of an America score that is supposed to be an indication of how much intelligence an individual has. We find that the whole concept of intelligence has been undergoing a great deal of revision and discussion in recent years. There was a time when it was thought that intelligence was a fixed property and you were born with a certain amount of it and you could not increase it or it would not decrease. We know that the IQ score that is generated by different tests is very much subject to increase and decrease with environmental conditions so that I guess the big change in this area has been that we no longer hold that IQ is something that is fixed. It certainly can be increased and decreased quite radically depending on the kinds of environments that we find students in.

Diego Gayegos, Albuquerque School Board Member and longtime special educator and administrator. I think that IQ tests are really not the main problem. IQ tests are a tool. They are a tool to be used by people who are trained to observe kids, to understand kids, to look at how kids learn or don't learn and people that have that basic understanding can take a look at IQ tests and just use them as a tool just as a piece of the puzzle in a sense, a piece of the picture. Dr. Leonard Bartha. There is still bias in the instruments but some of the studies that we've been looking at indicate that if we were to collect all of the bias that about 75% of the bias would be found in the process and only about 25% of the bias would be located within the test items or the instruments themselves. So I'm saying as we have improved the tests and certainly there's been a lot of improvement in the last 15 years, we have many more tests, better tests.

We have not solved the test problem but there's been progress made. The area where I think the biggest problem is today is in the process, the referral policies, the staffing patterns, the way decisions are made in the staffing is the lack of real understanding on the part of parents as to what the staffing is all about and some of their due process rights and their right to an independent evaluation. Many of these things are not fully understood or utilized by minority parents and as a result the entire decision making process is flawed and is open to a good deal of bias and decisions that would be counterproductive to some minority children. Students are referred by teachers to screening committees set up in schools. These committees offer different strategies, techniques or placement in the classrooms. If these supportive efforts fail the child is then referred for testing and possible placement.

75% of children referred are usually placed in special education programs. Dr. Josie De Leon, professor of special education, University of New Mexico. The screening committee goes through the referral and then make recommendations as to whether or not to test the child. The screening committees are basically there to ensure that there isn't bias in a particular teacher's referral. In other words, you don't have children being referred just because teachers are biased. That's the function of the screening committee, they don't always work that way. In my experience I've had referrals from teachers who were very definitely biased and the screening committee did nothing to deal with that. It was normally children who were Hispanic, children from low socioeconomic backgrounds and children who many of them came from Mexico.

The area of behavioral disorders is also caused for concern in some areas of the country. Dr. Gonzalez. The large percentage of kids in there again are from lower socioeconomic homes. As far as identification or qualification for a class for the behaviorally disordered, it is very, very loose and open. You do not need test scores. The kid does not have to score an IQ of 170 or whatever. It does not have to be reading two, three grade levels below. The primary factor is that somebody has to deem or identify this kid's behavior as inappropriate. That's basically it. In certain schools, you will see a certain teacher making 40-50% of the referrals. I have gone through schools where one or two teachers are doing all the referrals for behaviorally disordered and all those students in behaviorally disordered classes were referred by that one individual.

It is quite open. The primary thing is that somebody has to say that behavior is inadequate. Again, there are some people that can tolerate certain behaviors or some people that control in their class and others that have absolutely no control in their classroom and therefore they can refer kids and in most cases again, they will be referred and they will be placed. As a result of litigation, the numbers of minority children in classes for the mentally retarded have dropped dramatically since the 60s. However, the trend at the present time indicates that culturally and linguistically different children have now become overrepresented in other areas. Dr. De Leon. The biggest areas I think of concern are those that have some tie to language, language learning disabilities, communication disorders, or perhaps the two areas where we have in this day and age the largest over-representation of minority children. Albert Thes at the University of Texas in Austin has clearly shown that that is certainly

the case in Texas and even though we don't have the statistics in other states, I believe that that's also the situation in other states where there are large numbers of children who come from non-English speaking homes. We have a very difficult time distinguishing between a language difference and a language deficit, consequently many children who are not disabled end up in classes for exceptional children. Albert Ortiz from University of Texas at Austin. The key thing is that at the end when we looked at these kids, it seemed to us that what was happening was that a large number of them wound up in special education because they hadn't been in bilingual education programs long enough, they hadn't been in native language instruction long enough, the transition to English had been premature and so you wound

up with that cycle that you wind up with kids that are not proficient in either. Special Ed doesn't know enough about language dominance and language proficiency and that area of assessment is basically considered to be a bilingual education issue and so when we looked at language information in kids' folders, it was obtained from bilingual teachers from the district screening and assessment process and it wasn't updated. Although not always the case, Chicanos and other national minorities in the United States face particular problems. I think there's a unique situation with Chicanos who are born in this country that needs to be carefully looked at and that is that we tend to take a very naive approach to English proficiency. Students may sound like they're proficient because they speak without an accent but they

may appear to be proficient because they can carry on a social conversation. But we have learned in recent years that there's a very important distinction between what is referred to as school language or academic language and social language or conversational language. Conversational language is attained in a matter of one to three years and a student may be able to tell you where he lives and a little bit about himself and his family and carry on a little bit of a superficial conversation with you in a perfectly fluent English command of English. But when you push that student harder into abstract material and difficult reading material and writing tasks in English, then we see a big, big difference and the reason is that the student has not progressed in his English development to a point where he has a complete

mastery over the academic aspects of the language which would involve context-reduced material that's more abstract and difficult to manage. So what typically happens is that school psychologists and diagnosticians, school administrators, will see these children in the playground or in some social setting and say, well, they seem to know English very well. And so when the assessment is given, it is usually given strictly in English because they feel that the child can handle himself in an English testing situation. But that, I think, is very deceiving and many of those children need to be tested by linguically to really plug into the strongest language system that they may have. Along with level of English proficiency, the electrical differences of children also pose questions and administering tests published in other languages. Translations and adaptations of tests are other areas of concern, Dr. Ortiz.

I think it's important that if you do do adaptations that districts do some upfront work saying these are acceptable adaptations and these are not. And so using the secretary is not an acceptable adaptation, particularly if you haven't done any assessment of whether or not the person is really bilingual. And you get some real strange kinds of assessments. Recognizing the need for bilingual diagnosticians who would be more alert to these testing issues has led a few universities around the country to institute recruitment and training programs at the graduate level. However, bilingual diagnosticians also encounter problems which hamper their diagnosis and ultimate placement of children. Sometimes a child responds in English, but what he is doing is translating from Navajo to English.

And sometimes we do not have any words in Navajo to explain what we really mean in English. For example, fruit in Navajo, there's no word for fruit. What we do is list the names of the fruits like apples, oranges, bananas, what have you. However, if a child responds in this way on a particular item on the Wexler, he would only be given credit for one point. Once a child is labeled, teachers, educators, parents, whoever is involved with the children tend to see that child with a label on. If we could just respond to each individual child as having, looking at that child as having strengths and weaknesses and using that child's strengths to help with some of his weaknesses, regardless if this child is a special heir or regular heir, I think would be most beneficial. I find myself feeling very torn between wanting to provide a good diagnosis and helping the student and knowing that special ed for many of these students is going to be at

and they're going to be placed in a program, maybe not this time that I've evaluated them, but maybe in two years they'll be re-evaluated by somebody else and consequently qualify. How old are you? How old are you? How old are you? How old are you then? Okay. Do you like school? Culturally and linguistically different children pose concerns for diagnosticians and classroom teachers already plagued with overcrowded classrooms, shortages in supplies, lack of support, training and low pay. For parents of children placed in special programs, the experience can be doubly confusing and frustrating. Now, first they thought that he might be a gifted student. He showed signs of having difficulties problems and they thought that his problems might be due to him being an exceptional child.

So they did testing on him and while they were testing him and believing that he was or thinking that he was a gifted child, the treatment was very nice and then when they discovered that no, he wasn't a gifted child, the treatment changed. Then they decided that what he had was learning disabilities. He went to some regular classes but then he was put in lower classes and at first they thought that maybe it might be dyslexia or that maybe it was due to a reading problem and he was tested and tested and tested and finally what they decided was that the child had a behavioral problem. There are times when I have been at meetings and I totally did not know what was going on or well initially I didn't know what was being said because I didn't understand the terminology that was being used. I felt very intimidated because they were what ate or sometimes more than four professionals and I felt like they were all pointing the finger at me like it was my fault.

I was under the impression that I had to sign at the end of the meeting regardless of what I felt was good for my child but as I began to become more accustomed to exercising my rights as a parent then I began to find out that I didn't have to agree and I could or I could say let me think it over and I'll get back to you. Take it home and examine it with someone else and then go back and then negotiate. Parents and experts agree that training and cultural awareness of professionals is key to correctly diagnosing and placing minority children. Of equal importance is parent training and involvement in the process, Dr. Baca. I think 94-142 the education of all handicapped children's act was in a way a marvelous piece of legislation because it built in to the system a great deal of protection for parents and a great deal of due process kinds of provisions. If a parent is not happy with the results of an

evaluation that has been conducted by the school district they have a right to request an independent evaluation and mounting to a second opinion by a separate evaluator or diagnostician. Most parents do not know that. If they've agreed to a certain individualized educational plan and then they find out three or four months later that it's not working many of them are not aware that they can request a reevaluation or that if they're not happy with the decision made by the school district that they can request a fair hearing and go before a fair hearing officer to bring forth their concern or their particular problem that they are experiencing. In addition to the problematic areas discussed the last eight years have seen a dramatic cut in the funding of bilingual programs. One of the tragedies in recent years is that

many of the legal assistance programs like Legal Aid and similar legal projects have not been funded by the current administration therefore we have not seen any class action suits brought against school districts or state departments of education in the last oh eight years and I think that's been a loss because the courts have been the most effective instrument in keeping us honest within education and in protecting the rights of the minority student. The current political atmosphere has also engendered attacks by various conservative groups most notably the US English movement, Alba Ortiz. If you look at all of the literature and a lot of the propaganda that the US English movement puts out essentially the questions boil down to two

one is the whole issue of whether you need to provide multilingual ballots and the other is the issue of bilingual education. The conservative climate has also spawned challenges to protections previously won as a result of the Larry P. Riles case which led California to prohibit the use of IQ tests for placement in special education programs. You're referring to the case where the black family is wanting to have the IQ test used in order to have their child considered for gifted and talented program. They're not concerned about keeping their child out of a handicap program. They're rather concerned about getting their child into a gifted program and the Larry P. Case decided that the IQ test could not be used for any special ed program including the gifted and talented. So while it protected children from inappropriate placements into negative categories in a sense the question is is it excluding them from being placed into

gifted and talented or positive type of programs. My sense is that there are alternative methods of assessment that can be used to identify them for gifted and talented programs and that that being the case I think the onus of the matter will rest with the school district's ability to show that they do have alternative methods of identifying gifted and talented students. In fact I would think it would be more advantageous not to use the IQ as a measure for identifying minority kids as gifted and talented and then what is needed is more broadly based assessment practices such as observations, interviews, informal assessments, peer nominations, community and parent nominations those things I think would be much more sensitive to identifying more minority children for gifted and talented programs. 80% of Native Americans, 55% of Latinos and 45% of Black children drop out of school children along with women make up the majority of the poor in this

country over one half of minority children living single parent households budget cuts of the present administration have dramatically cut social programs such as Head Start, daycare, bilingual education, WIC and medical programs placing a large majority of our youth and consequently our future leaders at risk. This program was produced by Sofia Martinez edited by Marcos Martinez, Lewis Head and Sofia Martinez narrated by Marilyn Davis and engineered by Marcos Martinez. Bias and Diagnosis Children at Risk was funded by the Latino Consortium, additional support provided by Common Incorporated in the Southwest Organizing Project Albuquerque New Mexico. For cassettes and transcripts, write to Southwest Media Productions 4904 Community Lane Southwest Albuquerque New Mexico 8705 or call Marcos Martinez at 505-277-8016.