This monograph provides special educators with guidelines to help them succeed in their work with minority language students. It emphasizes the necessity for bringing the social context into educational planning, in its discussion of such topics as the history of limited English proficient (LEP) children in special education, classroom needs of LEP handicapped children, methods of working with minority language parents, and issues in the assessment of LEP children. An introductory chapter discusses the diversity among LEP children and the achievement of LEP children in schools. An historical perspective on minority language students and special education focuses on the growth of ungraded classes for "backward" children between 1900 and 1920, the rise of intelligence tests and their use on LEP children, overrepresentation of minority children in special education, and current efforts toward change. Classroom needs call for consideration of assimilationism versus pluralism, teacher attitudes, cross-cultural communication, motivation, multicultural curriculum, and teaching English as a second language. Assessment of minority language students requires standardized testing as well as nonstandardized measures of language proficiency in both the child's first and second languages, measures of adaptive behavior, and naturalistic observations of the child in various settings. (JDD)