View and download the  ASHA 2015 presentation by Cate Crowley, Tia Washington and Diane El-Sawaf here:

Innovative Approaches to Address Disproportionate Referrals to SPED in the Nation’s Largest School District

Cate Crowley from Teachers College, Columbia University along with Tia Washington and Diane El-Sawaf from the New York City Department of Education (NYCDOE) discuss measures taken to combat the over referral of students from diverse backgrounds for special education services in New York City. This includes developing skilled evaluators and an evaluation template to encourage appropriate evaluation. In addition, there is a need for evaluation materials that are unbiased, valid and reliable  as opposed to many commonly used standardized tests. In response to this need, Dr. Crowley developed a series of evaluation materials (SLAM materials) designed to be less biased towards students from diverse backgrounds. All the materials can be found below and are free for download.

Initial Template for Speech-Language Evaluators.pdf

School Age Language Assessment Measures (SLAM) Materials

For further information on providing appropriate disability evaluations, watch Dr. Crowley’s module series here:

Preschool Disability Evaluations (Playlist) 

Take the free CEU course mentioned in the presentation here:

Grammar Fundamentals for a Pluralistic Society