Pedro is a 12 year old boy from Puerto Rico. He attended kindergarten and first grade there. Although school records from his school in Puerto Rico show that Pedro had behavior issues in the classroom, he was not identified as having a disability.

After coming to the U.S., Pedro was identified with autism spectrum disorder as his primary disability and a speech-language disorder as his secondary disability. Pedro receives most of his instruction in the general education classroom, and spends a small amount of time in a resource room or occupational therapy room. His challenges in the general education classroom are largely behavioral. Pedro talks excessively, fails to listen to others, and shows unusual behaviors when communicating with others (e.g., avoiding eye contact).

Currently, Pedro is fluent in conversational English and his academic English skills are at an intermediate level. He has proficient decoding skills in English, but has difficulty identifying the author’s or characters’ opinions and making inferences. Although Pedro is instructed in English only, he sometimes uses a bilingual dictionary to define words he is not familiar with.

Consider Pedro as you continue ...