Asian American Children in Special Education:
Need for Multidimensional Collaboration
Ji-Mei Chang, Ph.D.
Division of Special Education & Rehabilitative Services
San Jose State University
Abstract
Children and youth of Asian American language minority groups represent a major part of the future workforce in our country. The services provided in schools and in rehabilitation programs play an important role in strengthening this linguistically and culturally diverse workforce for our society. Based on three interrelated areas of concern: the myth of model minority, fragmented instructional services, and the movement of full inclusion, collaboration is needed if effective services to Asian American students or consumers with special needs are to be provided. Case studies of Chinese American limited English proficient students with learning disabilities (LEP+LD) illustrate the possible ways of collaboration among teachers, parents, specialists, and community informants in order to generate social capital to sustain school progress.
Introduction
Given the rapid demographic changes that have occurred in schools, communities, and workplaces, a major concern in the field of special education and rehabilitation today is the provision of effective services to multilingual/multicultural diverse populations. Asian American students represent one of the fastest growing language minority groups in many parts of the country. Although sometimes misrepresented as a homogeneous group, they are comprised of vastly diverse ethnic, religious, and language groups. Together, children and youth of these diverse groups will form a major part of the future workforce in this country. Therefore, the services provided in schools as well as in rehabilitation play an important role in strengthening this workforce for our society.
Need for Multidimensional Collaboration
Citing evidence from a previous study conducted among Chinese American students, much of the discussion in this paper is focused on school. The call for multidimensional collaboration in the context of serving Asian American students is based on three interrelated areas of concern.
Model Minority Myth
Asian American students have been perceived by the general public and teachers as model minority students. Such a myth disguises many Asian American students in need of special education and related services (Chan, 1984; Chang, 1993; Cheng & Chang, 1990). In other words, whether they have a disability or not, all Asian American students do not succeed in school or the workplace. They do not all receive the same levels of language, literacy, and social support to maintain the model student status; particularly, Asian American students who are identified as having specific learning disabilities (LD) in schools. Since many of these LD students have average or above average intelligence, this group of Asian Americans is possibly the most misunderstood by their parents and Asian American communities. In fact, the term "learning disability" does not exist in many non- English speaking Asian countries where some of our immigrant students come from. In a current survey (Chang, 1993), a group of working Chinese limited English proficient (LEP) parents from an inner city environment responded that their child was placed in a special education resource room because he/she needed intensive one-on-one tutorial service. Some parents indicated that their child was dumb or lazy. These parents did not seem to understand the nature of their child's learning disability. Due to the differences in language, cultural, and prior educational experiences in home countries, many Chinese or Asian LEP parents surveyed kept minimum contact with schools if there was no initiative generated from schools or teachers. However, these parents expressed their trust and appreciation of teachers.
From a home perspective, not all families can generate social capital for literacy support (Coleman, 1987) to establish an adequate foundation for their child's academic development. The most common form of social capital generated for children in Asian American homes, or in most middle class families, includes the provision of transportation to public libraries, buying additional school related materials, visiting museums, providing music or art lessons, traveling, supervising homework, hiring tutors, attending school functions, or even moving into the best school districts. In addition, many Chinese/Asian parents need guidance on ways to enhance their child's self esteem, particularly the daughter or son who has been placed in special education. When these students were not perceived as model students by teachers or parents, much undue burden and pressure was placed on Chinese/Asian students with special needs and/or on their parents.
From a school perspective, given the ethnic, language, and cultural diversity observed within the Asian American student population, it has not been possible for the school district or rehabilitation agencies to recruit the much needed personnel who can effectively communicate and serve Asian language minority groups who lack social capital. Hence, the myth of model minority hurts many Asian American students who are in need of effective special education and/or rehabilitative services.
The Fragmented Services
Instructional and remedial programs that exist in many schools provided by regular and special education teachers, speech/language therapists, and counselors tend to be disjointed and uncollaborative in nature. A current study of special education student populations, including Chinese and Mexican American children (Chang, 1993; Chang & Maldonado-Colon, 1991-93), revealed reduced opportunities for the LEP and/or second language learners to develop cognitive and academic language proficiency (CALP) (Cummins, 1984) in both home and school languages when placed in pull-out special education resource programs or other related services. In fact, a majority of these students did not have identifiable systematic programs to develop either English or their home language in the existing disjointed instructional programs (Chang, 1993; Chang & Maldonado-Colon, 1992). A major portion of their precious learning time in school seemed to be spent "in between" settling down for different sets of instructional or remedial activities; and adjusting to different sets of classroom rules, teaching styles, peers, and environment. In addition, many Chinese LEP+LD students who enrolled in inner city schools had less opportunities of socializing with middle class Anglo American students who could serve as English language models. If it takes a five-to-seven year span to develop CALP for normal second language learners (Cummins, 1981; 1984), then this particular group of language minority special education students might need twice as long under the current fragmented instructional environment to catch up with their peers in English language development. In the meantime, they also may not be able to effectively acquire academic skills through English.
Most of the schools rarely provide programs that promote a variety of Asian languages. Hence, many Asian LEP student have limited use of their home language in school or school related work. It is very common for them to speak English with their peers, siblings, and parents. The use of home language at home was subse- quently reduced to routine chores or basic conversations. The bilingual school psychologist interviewed in the project (Chang, 1993) indicated that many Chinese LEP students could no longer understand CALP used in their home language in the formal assessment process. Once these LEP students were placed in special education, they were likely to withdraw from a community-based weekend or after school Chinese language program for fear of interference with their English language acquisition and academic learning.
In summary, we found that students who were placed in LD resource rooms were expected to need only specific support in specific academic areas. However, specific support provided in such a fragmented manner, without collaboration among professionals, seemed to create a global obstacle for English language and academic development among some groups of LEP and second language learners.
Movement Toward Full Inclusion
The third area of concern is based on the present movement to serve and educate all individuals with or without disabilities in the same classroom and school environment. Currently, the term "full inclusion" seems to be interpreted and implemented differently by different schools and personnel across the country. Language minority students with special needs should not only be integrated, but also fully included in all aspects of "meaningful" instruction and school activities. However, at the present time, not many preservice and inservice teachers, specialists, and counselors in related fields are informed or knowledgeable about diverse Asian American students or consumers with special needs.
In current literature, concerns regarding school's readiness to serve students with a diverse background have been voiced (e.g., Coleman, 1987; Goodland, 1992). If "schools are limited in their power to generate the social capital on which academic performance depends" (Goodland, 1992, p.234), the current inclusion movement would certainly raise serious concerns for students with disabilities who are from poor, non-English speaking, and limited home literacy environments. In such a circumstance, those students are unlikely to have adequate social capital for language and academic development. The important point is that professionals in all related service areas need to re-examine traditional and current practices and beliefs relevant to Asian American populations in order to expedite collaborative and meaningful services across disciplines within an inclusive school or community.
Clues for Sustaining School Progress
Clues for developing successful programs able to generate social capital for academic learning of Asian American students might be drawn from the findings of a current study conducted in an inner city (Chang, 1993). In a holistic study of the language and literacy environments of a group of selected Chinese Americans who were both LEP and LD (LEP+LD), the results revealed that with substantial support generated from any two of the three components of home, school, and community (See Figure 1), LEP+LD students were able to maintain satisfactory progress in the special education and mainstreaming environments (Chang, 1993). For example in the case of limited home support, teachers in both regular and special education classrooms, along with speech-language therapists, worked together to make sure that the target students could travel to a community-based after school tutorial program to complete their homework or engage in various literacy related activities outside of school. The extended support for the LEP+LD students generated from the school environment was linked with support personnel in the community-based facilities to sustain the student's language and literacy development.
In the case where the school was provided with limited support (such as the absence of bilingual services), progress was documented among a few students. Specifically, the parents who had been closely monitoring their child's daily or weekly progress, hired tutors to assist with school work and fully utilized community facilities, such as attending public library activities, and/or visiting museums, had children who made progress. This was more commonly observed in middle class Asian American families, but was not the case for many Asian families with less educated LEP parents from a lower socioeconomic status.
Although community resources were limited, school progress was noted among some LEP+LD students when families and schools could form a team to provide much needed support for the students' achievement. For example, it was very common for Chinese families to pitch in and purchase a house in a desirable school district. These extended families had no involvement in their immediate suburban community, and in some cases, they felt unwelcome by their immediate neighbors. Many of these parents continued to keep their inner city low paying jobs and to center their lives on Chinatown. In general, they had limited opportunities to learn as well as use the English language in daily life. However, being enrolled in a desirable school seemed to "pay off" because the close supervision of school principals and teachers sustained their child's progress when these parents could jointly hire a tutor to assist with homework and school projects. The school liaison, usually a Chinese-speaking parent, kept these LEP parents informed and involved, though in a limited way, in school activities and the child's progress.
Implications for Related Services
The aforementioned cases illustrate that many Chinese American students engage in language and literacy learning across multiple sites; collaboration between any two components of school, home, and community sustains Chinese LEP+LD students' school progress. The findings also suggest that those LEP+LD students who have support from only one or none of these areas continue to lag behind their peers. To conclude, professionals in related fields can provide effective services in multilingual and multicultural schools or communities by forming an alliance for collaboration across school, home, and community to generate social capital that is essential for all students.
Barriers exist in providing effective rehabilitative services for Asian students, particularly, counseling services for families and students from all grade levels and career-vocational education or development for youth in secondary schools. For Asian LEP+LD students to fully realize the benefit of rehabilitative services, the types of social capital that enhance career-vocational development or counseling services may need to be first generated from the Asian community, specifically among those who serve as role models and those who have positive influence over parents or individual families. Because Asians traditionally value academic learning more than career-vocational education for their youth, attitude changes toward accepting rehabilitation processes in secondary schools for Asian LEP+LD youth may need to be first established in each perspective community and family.
Acknowledgment
The writing of this article was supported by a research grant from the Office of Special Education Projects, U.S. Department of Education (H023A10050). Thanks are also extended to Dr. June McCullough at the San Jose State University, Dr. Candace S. Bos at the University of Arizona, and Dr. Li-Rong Lilly Cheng at the San Diego State University for commenting on the manuscript.
References
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