Speakers
Abstract section 3: Content/method
Centered on qualitative interviews with racialized multilingual students classified with disabilities, we enact a CDR perspective to map (a) how monolingual assumptions shape referral, assessment, and interpretation of communication, and (b) how the student’s translanguaging practices reveal competencies rendered invisible by standard procedures. The poster will include an ideology-to-practice pathway (from beliefs to assessment decisions to labels), and examples of repertoire-sensitive assessment practices that attend to interactional, multimodal, and community-based meaning-making.
Abstract section 1: Relevance
Multilingual learners labeled with disabilities (MLADs) are frequently positioned through deficit narratives that frame bi/multilingualism as risk rather than resource. A Critical Dis/abilities Raciolinguistic (CDR) perspective highlights how these narratives are sustained by colonial language ideologies that normalize monolingual development (Cioè-Peña, 2021) and constrain what counts as language in school-based evaluation (Steele et al., 2022). Aligning with calls to integrate translanguaging into speech-language assessment (Khamis & Bortz, 2025), this poster traces how deficit views are produced and resisted by foregrounding translanguaging as ideological resistance—an orientation that recognizes MLADs’ dynamic repertoires as legitimate, agentive, and socially situated meaning-making.
Abstract section 5: References
Cioè-Peña, M. (2021). Dual language and the erasure of emergent bilinguals labeled as disabled (EBLADs). In N. Flores, A. Tseng & N. Subtirelu (Eds.), Bilingualism for all? : Raciolinguistic perspectives on dual language education in the United States. (pp. 63–87). Multilingual Matters. https://doi.org/10.21832/9781800410053-005
Khamis, R., & Bortz, M. (2025). Translanguaging: A theoretical shift necessary for culturally and linguistically responsive practice in speech-language-hearing sciences. In M. Goral & A. R. Lerman (Eds.), Advances in the neurolinguistic study of multilingual and monolingual adults: In honor of Professor Loraine K. Obler. Routledge.
Steele, C., Dovchin, S., & Oliver, R. (2022). 'Stop measuring Black kids with a white stick': Translanguaging for classroom assessment. RELC Journal, 53(2), 400-415. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336882221086307
Abstract section 4: Outcomes/results
Bridging Translanguaging with a CDR perspective, we propose actionable shifts for special education service providers and educators to adapt across global contexts. These include repertoire-informed assessment, collaborative interpretation with families and teachers, and advocacy that challenges deficit labeling across school policies and service delivery. Translanguaging is presented not solely as a pedagogical strategy, but as an ethical stance that supports inclusion for multilingual learners with (and without) disabilities.
Abstract section 2: Contribution/research questions
- How does a CDR perspective reveal how colonial language ideologies shape referral, assessment, and interpretations of communication for multilingual learners labeled with disabilities?
- What do the experiences of MLADs reveal about translanguaging and multimodal communicative repertoires as forms of resistance to monolingual assessment practices?
| Title | Translanguaging as Resistance for Multilingual Learners |
|---|---|
| Teaching Context | General |