District Must Fund Bilingual Speech Assessment for Autistic Student Exposed to Vietnamese at Home

What Happened

Student is a 10-year-old fifth grader with autism who attends a special day class for students with moderate to severe disabilities in Garden Grove Unified School District. Student is primarily non-verbal and receives speech and language therapy, occupational therapy, behavioral services, and adaptive physical education. While Student's schooling takes place entirely in English, he is regularly exposed to both English and Vietnamese at home.

At Student's 2011 triennial IEP meeting, the district's speech and language assessment consisted of a single paragraph of brief classroom observations — no formal standardized or criterion-referenced testing. Parents disagreed with this assessment and, in February 2012, requested an independent educational evaluation (IEE) in speech and language at district expense. The district agreed to fund an IEE but imposed a cost cap of $800 based on its internal criteria. Parents chose Julie Diep, a bilingual English-Vietnamese speech-language pathologist who was also a Board Certified Behavior Analyst with experience serving children with autism. Ms. Diep's rate was $2,400. The district offered to pay only $800, and the dispute over that $500–$1,500 gap ended up in a due process hearing.

What the District Did Wrong

The ALJ found several significant problems with how the district handled the IEE request. First, the district's $800 cost cap was based solely on what it typically paid its own approved agencies — none of which could provide a bilingual English-Vietnamese assessor. The district never factored in the additional cost of providing a Vietnamese interpreter, which would have been required if a non-bilingual assessor were used. Under federal law, a district's cost maximum must be set high enough that parents have a real choice among qualified professionals in the area — not just an average of what the district prefers to pay.

Second, the district failed to meaningfully account for Student's unique circumstances. Student is a non-verbal child with autism who is exposed to Vietnamese at home. Federal regulations require that assessments be conducted in the child's native language or mode of communication, and in a form most likely to yield accurate information. The district acknowledged that no assessor on its approved list could provide a bilingual Vietnamese-English evaluation. Despite this, the district did not adjust its cost criteria or take steps to ensure a genuinely bilingual assessment was available within its funding parameters.

Third, the district's own triennial speech and language assessment was so thin — a single paragraph of observations — that it failed to provide the IEP team with enough information to develop appropriate communication goals. The ALJ noted that the district's "meager" assessment spoke for itself in justifying the IEE request in the first place.

What Was Ordered

1. The district is ordered to fund an Independent Educational Evaluation in speech and language conducted by Julie Diep at a cost not to exceed $1,500.

Why This Matters for Parents

1. A district's IEE cost cap must allow you to actually choose from qualified professionals — not just rubber-stamp the district's preferred vendors. If the only assessors within the district's budget can't meet your child's needs (for example, because they don't speak your home language), the cost cap may be legally insufficient and challengeable.

2. Your child's home language matters for assessments, even if school instruction is in English only. Federal law requires evaluations to be conducted in a child's native language or mode of communication. If your child is exposed to a language other than English at home, a bilingual assessor may be legally required — and the district must fund one.

3. A one-paragraph assessment is not a real assessment. Parents should carefully review every section of their child's evaluation. If a speech-language assessment consists only of a few sentences of observations with no standardized testing, that is grounds to request an IEE at district expense.

4. When requesting an IEE, document your child's unique needs in writing. In this case, the ALJ found that the parent's chosen assessor was justified because of Student's autism, non-verbal communication style, and Vietnamese home language — all of which required a specialist with specific qualifications. Spelling out these unique needs in your IEE request letter strengthens your case if the district disputes your choice of evaluator.

5. Don't give up over a cost dispute. The ALJ pointedly noted that the entire hearing could have been avoided if the parties had settled a $500 gap. If you and the district are close on price, document your good-faith efforts to compromise — it reflects well on your position if the matter goes to hearing.