A review of the research reveals that standardized intelligence and achievement testing presents linguistic, cultural, and psychological difficulties for Spanish-speaking children in terms of such internal or intervening variables as the language of the administration of the test, the extent of the verbal factor in it, and the ethnic background of its administrator. At the core of the problem has been the IQ testing of Spanish-speaking children. There is a need of paramount importance to modify the use of present IQ instruments and to develop new specialized instruments that utilize the language and cultural background of Spanish-speaking children to facilitate the assessment of their academic abilities. As in the case of IQ testing, on the standardized achievement tests, a verbal factor appeared to militate against the optimal performance of Spanish-speaking children. Those subtests most dependent on English language skills generally resulted in poorest performance, indicating a handicap in language ability rather than in learning ability. (DB)