The present study had three purposes. The first was to examine the score reliability of instruments purported to be appropriate in the assessment of students with limited English proficiency (LEP). The second was to investigate the criterion-related validity of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) with a sample of lowperforming, Hispanic students. The third purpose was to explore the contribution of language proficiency in the dominant language (L1) and the language proficiency in the subordinate language (L2) in the prediction of reading achievement in L1. Participants included first and third grade students of Hispanic origin who scored below the median for their district on a state-approved, district-administered measure of literacy in first grade. Satisfactory internal consistency estimates were achieved with a sample of LEP students (n=24) on the UNIT, the Woodcock-Muñoz Language Survey (WMLS) in English and in Spanish, and the Batería Woodcock-Muñoz: Pruebas de Approvechamiento-Revisada (Batería-R APR). For first grade students, scores from the UNIT demonstrated satisfactory concurrent validity with those from the Woodcock Johnson III: Tests of Achievement (WJ-III ACH) for a sample of Hispanic, non-LEP students (n=89). However, the concurrent validity of the UNIT was not upheld for a sample of Hispanic, LEP students administered the Batería-R APR (n=56). Regarding predictive validity, results from simple linear regression analyses suggested that performance on the UNIT in first grade accounted for a negligible portion of the variance on the Texas high-stakes reading test in third grade for a group of LEP students (n=51) as well as for a group of non-LEP students (n=77). Language proficiency in L1 emerged as a positive predictor of reading achievement in L1. However, language proficiency in L2 was not shown to be a statistically significant, independent contributor to this relationship with reading achievement on the Batería-R APR (n=79), WJ-III ACH (n=14), TAKS Spanish (n=54), or TAKS English (n=12). Findings are discussed with respect to the restriction of range due to selection criterion and sample size, the use of the Abbreviated battery of the UNIT in the prediction of reading achievement, and the contribution of language proficiency in L2 for low performing, LEP students in the third grade.

Thesis PlanB (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stout, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--Regis University, Denver, Colo., 2010. / Title from PDF title page (viewed on Jun. 24, 2010). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rhode Island, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 120-124).

Dissertation (Ed.D.)--The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, 2008. / Directed by Diane Gill; submitted to the Dept. of Exercise and Sport Science. Title from PDF t.p. (viewed Jan. 28, 2010). Includes bibliographical references (p. 105-111).

Thesis (M. P. A.)--Texas State University-San Marcos, 2007. / "Fall 2007." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 58-67).

Thesis (M.I.T.)--The Evergreen State College, 2007. / Title from title screen viewed (4/10/2008). Includes bibliographical references (leaves 160-168).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--Ohio University, November, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 202-217)

The population of Hispanic limited-English proficient (LEP) people in the U.S. is growing at a staggering rate. Soon a quarter of the population will be Hispanic, with many of them being LEP. High-quality patient-provider communication is vital to cost-effective healthcare that could improve patient health outcomes. There are not enough Spanish-speaking healthcare providers to serve this growing population. Diversifying the profession is one answer, but will take many years. Professional interpreter services have been proven to be helpful in reducing this language discordance, but they are grossly underused due to barriers such as availability, cost, and quality. These barriers disproportionally affect smaller health clinics, so they instead often rely on the use of bilingual staff members and a patient's bilingual family members for interpretation. This practice diminishes the confidentiality of the visit and can lead to interpretation errors that can negatively impact health outcomes and increase healthcare cost. The possibility of applying formal medical interpreter training (MIT) to qualified bilingual staff members could be a solution to make high-quality interpretation services more readily available to the smaller healthcare clinic. An electronic survey was sent out to Nurse Practitioners through the Coalition of Arizona Nurses in Advance Practice listserv that explored their current interpretation use and their general knowledge and interest in applying MIT to their practice. Of the 29 surveyed, 24% of them spoke Spanish and only 7% "always" used interpretation services to provide care to LEP patients. Bilingual staff members and patients' bilingual family members were often the preferred and most utilized method of interpretation, which seemingly was connected to its ready availability. Although almost all of the providers believed that MIT would improve the interpretive skills of their bilingual staff members, only 62% thought the training would be applicable to their practice, with only 38% believing time and cost would be worth the benefit. Further research is needed to help determine if the cost of MIT implementation actually results in improved interpretation skills and if this benefits the practice and the LEP patient.

Much of how Florida and other states across the country justify the practice of mainstreaming English language learners into regular content classrooms rests on the premise that with the guidance of state officials, local school districts adequately train content teachers to work with English language learners. Yet little to no research exists that can help identify and analyze the overall efficacy of these programs. Consequently, this study has attempted to determine whether district training sessions in Florida are sufficiently covering the state-mandated content areas that teachers are required to learn and to what extent in-service teachers agree or disagree that they received the appropriate amount of instruction that would prepare them to instruct English language learners. Training sessions in three large Florida school districts with high proportions of English language learners were studied using a mixed-methods approach that gathered quantitative and qualitative data from observations, surveys and in-depth interviews. Among other things, the findings revealed a pattern of districts overemphasizing cross-cultural awareness issues to the detriment of other critical areas teachers need to know such as methods and curriculum. In addition, there was a general consensus on the part of participants that the trainings lacked specificity and were both impractical and redundant. A number of specific recommendations are offered such as ways to modify the focus of the curriculum, provide incentives to teachers, and create more accountability and oversight of the training sessions themselves. Policymakers are strongly urged to prioritize these types of programs by providing training sessions with more resources and attaching to them a larger sense of importance.