WT’s Piehl Lecture to Focus on Helping Bilingual Students with Learning Disabilities

Copy by Chip Chandler, 806-651-2124, [email protected]

CANYON, Texas - An expert in assessing bilingual students with developing language skills are still developing is the featured speaker for West Texas A&M University's 14th annual Helen Piehl Distinguished Lecture.

Roxana Stanley will present "Bilingual Evaluation for Students with Specific Learning Disability With or Without Dyslexia" from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 9 in the Alumni Banquet Hall on WT's Canyon campus.

Registration is open now at wtamu.edu/cld. Fee is $25, including six hours of continuing education credit. Registration is free for WT students, faculty and staff.

A Zoom option also is available.

The workshop from WT's Center for Learning Disabilities is designed for anyone who assesses students, including educational diagnosticians, school psychologists and speech pathologists, said Dr. Stephanie Hart, CLD director and the Lanna Hatton Professor of Learning Disabilities.

"We are delighted to welcome Roxana Stanley to WT," Hart said. "She will guide participants through the complexities of determining whether classroom difficulties stem from a potential learning disability or from the natural progression of second language acquisition."

Stanley, who has earned degrees from the University of North Texas and Midwestern State University, has more than a decade of experience as an educational diagnostician.

"Too often, emergent bilingual students are misunderstood, misidentified, or overlooked altogether," Stanley said. "My mission is to change that-by equipping evaluators with the knowledge and tools they need to truly understand second language acquisition and make confident, appropriate decisions."

An emergent bilingual student is a student who has another language as their primary language but who is in the process of acquiring English.

The Center for Learning Disabilities was established to meet the needs of students with learning disabilities and their parents, as well as assisting teachers in understanding disabilities and possible strategies to help students cope and learn in the classroom.

About West Texas A&M University

West Texas A&M University is a Regional Research University in Canyon, Texas, on a 342-acre residential campus, as well as the Harrington Academic Hall WTAMU Amarillo Center in downtown Amarillo. Established in 1910, the University has been part of The Texas A&M University System since 1990. WT boasts an enrollment of about 9,000 and offers multiple options for students to graduate and succeed: 65 undergraduate degree programs, including eight associate degrees; and 41 graduate degrees, including an integrated bachelor's and master's degree, a specialist degree and three doctoral degrees. WT recently earned a Carnegie Foundation classification as a Research College and University. The Buffaloes are a member of the NCAA Division II Lone Star Conference and offers 16 men's and women's athletics programs.

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