Special education textbooks (e.g., Friend, 2005; Turnbull, Turnbull, Shank, & Smith, 2004) seem to suggest that the field of learning disabilities (LD) either knows very little about Latino students in the United States or that no cultural or linguistic considerations are necessary in its assessments, prevalence rates, or curricula and instruction (e.g., Bradley, Danielson, & Hallahan, 2002). This article argues the former and proposes that the future of LD could mimic the field of mental retardation if it does not counter the potential problems of social construction in diagnosis and irreparable educational harm in pedagogy for Latino students. Among the many factors associated with Latino students’ educational outcomes, two stand out: culture and bilingualism. The first manifests itself in multiple national origins, traditions, and histories. These interact with American culture, producing unique sociocultural and socioeconomic outcomes. More than anything, however, what impacts Latino populations in the United States is the failure of the American educational system to meet the needs of students who manage two language systems. This article focuses on Latino children who come from homes where Spanish is spoken, who spoke Spanish as their primary language, or who speak English and Spanish. They are all designated as being “bilingual” in that, historically, the term uniquely predicts their academic underachievement in the public schools. One aspect of Latino students’ underachievement was documented as early as the 1920s when they were found to overpopulate classes for the educable mentally retarded (Chandler & Platkos, 1969; Reynolds, 1933). General educators and special educators ignored the problematic history of bilingualism and psychometrics (Brigham, 1930), naively relying on English IQ tests to explain underachievement as mental retardation rather than as limited English proficiency.
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