I would like to learn how differences between linguistic systems impede the assessment and identification of students with learning disabilities. Although I prefer "difficulties" to "disabilities," the deaf, for instance, who are referred to as hearing-impaied individuals (more politically-correct language in my time as a student), have no more such difficulties owing to the existence of hearing aids. However, I would agree that cultural differences have a lot to do with the issue here. On the one hand, there are cultures that readily assess and resolve learning difficulties by openly dealing with them. Conversely, there are other cultures that surround the said difficulties with secresy and denial. Such a way of dealing with learning difficulties perpetuates them, and does a disservice to the culture's children.

Linguistic and cultural elements significantly influence identifying and assessing students with learning disorders, fostering challenges in making timely and accurate diagnoses or identifying issues. Pupils from different cultural backgrounds may show behaviors contradicting regular test expectations inherent in conventional evaluation tools. Language differences also augment the challenge of accurately assessing learning disabilities. Standardized tests may not capture the candidates' language skills, communication practices, and cultural standards, leading to questionable appraisal outcomes (Ortiz, & Yates,m2014).

This may also suggest that educators lack the necessary cultural competence to understand student attributes and requirements. It is vital to develop tailored evaluation techniques, entailing collaborations with bilingual specialists and more bipartite families to address these obstacles and assess learning disabilities and speech obstacles via linguistic acquisition lens and not lopsidedly. These approaches seek to ameliorate the underrepresentation of minority students in special schooling. Hence, the linguistically and culturally savvy assessment approach is necessary to suffice justly and precisely review learning disabilities (Sullivan, 2011).

References:

Sullivan, A. G. (2011). Disproportionality in special education identification and placement of English language learners. Equity & Excellence in Education, 44(2), 89–105.

Ortiz, S. O., & Yates, J. R. (2014). Equity in assessment for students with disabilities in state consortia assessments. Review of Educational Research, 84(4), 582–562.