When No Bilingual Examiner Is Available Exploring the Use of Ancillary Examiners as a Viable Testing Solution

Reliable and valid assessment of individuals who are English language learners (ELL) has pre-sented a dilemma to psychologists, and school psychologists in particular, as it is complicated by the small number of professionals qualified to serve as bilingual examiners. Some psychol-ogists use ancillary examiners during testing when no bilingual psychologist is available to con-duct the evaluation, and both the process and the impact of using ancillary examiners need further investigation. This study examined the performance of students under two testing conditions, one with a monolingual psychologist and an ancillary examiner, and another with a bilingual psychologist without an ancillary examiner. Students tested in English, with English as their dominant language, consistently performed better than those students tested in Spanish on sub-tests that required detailed verbal responses. Results also indicated that evaluation format may have an effect on student performance and can lead to different levels of performance