It’s difficult to distinguish ELLs with learning disabilities from those who do not have a learning disability because the two groups share many of the same characteristics. Among the characteristics shared are poor comprehension, difficulty following directions, syntactical and grammatical errors, and difficulty completing tasks (Franz, 2013). Educators often overlook the student’s prior education, literacy in native language, time in new country, learning style, or motivation as all reasons for the students progressing at a slow learning rate (Franz, 2013).
ELLs are often misdiagnosed and wrongly labelled because there is no adequate testing available for these students. Current testing systems today tend to be in English and there is a lack of personnel qualified to assess students (Flores and Chu 2011). Students are often over-identified as having a learning disability because educators often mistake the student’s slow progress in acquiring the English language as them having a disability (Flores and Chu 2011). On the contrary, at the same time ELLs are often under-identified for having a learning disability, as the teacher mistakes their disability as their natural progressing learning acquisition, since learning a new language exhibits similarities in behaviour as a student with an academic disability (Flores and Chu 2011).