In 2009, USLA established a partnership with a special education school in Santa María de Jesús, Guatemala. Children with disabilities are often viewed as having nothing to contribute to society in Guatemala. This school believes differently, and has provided children who would otherwise remain illiterate with the opportunity to attend school. You can view their website at: http://www.newlifeguatemala.com.
During Thanksgiving week of 2009, I traveled to Guatemala to conduct cognitive assessments at the school, using a test kit provided by Riverside Publishing. If you work in any sort of special education capacity with English Language Learners, you know conducting such assessments can be controversial. This is largely due to language and cultural differences. I used a test normed in Spanish in Latin America (WJCOG III), but still felt uncomfortable. Latin America, and indeed Guatemala, is a diverse place with many cultures and languages. Moreover, our students were both indigenous and Spanish Language Learners--their first language was Cachiquel, a Quiché Maya language. Needless to say, there were some linguistic and cultural issues at hand. That said, I also didn't feel comfortable just doing a loose "Claire invented" assessment. The WJ-Cog gives good information about underlying cognitive process based on a highly respected model of intelligence with tons of research (CHC Model). I may be losing some readers here with all my psychologist-nerd speak--sorry.
So, the bottom line is that I consulted with some people and decided to report on individual cognitive strengths and weaknesses instead of scores or ranges. Basically, we could know what each student was good at and what he/she struggled with. This information was combined with teacher reports to help us develop effective interventions so that the children might better learn. In Guatemala, there is no special education process, so good information and interventions were essential to helping these kids learn. We borrowed (with permission) a number of interventions from the Brainstars Manual published through Denver Children's Hospital. These interventions and reports will be completed by the time I travel to Guatemala during spring break of 2010. Then, I'll meet with parents and teachers to help determine how to implement these interventions in a culturally-appropriate way. I'll also provide training on use of social stories, behavior assessments, and Touch Math, which are some of the interventions I recommended.
Our plan for further involvement with this project is to continue to provide teacher training and consultation. We will likely use the material from the Brain Stars Manual in future trainings, which lists interventions that can be used for both children with brain injuries or for children with learning disabilities.