Supporting neurodivergent multilingual learners with academic writing

Neurodivergent multilingual learners are also referred to as English learners with exceptionalities (Honigsfeld & Cohan, 2024) or dually identified students (Individuals with Disabilities Education Act). These students are acquiring English, so they qualify for English Language Development (ELD) services, which means that they need additional language support beyond general grade-level English classes. Concurrently, these students are neurodivergent, meaning that they may be diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder, dysgraphia, dyslexia, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, a specific learning disability or a combination of these diagnoses. Most neurodivergent students have an Individualised Learning Plan, which means that they qualify for Special Education (SPED) services such as regular learning support from special educators, occupational therapists and/or speech language pathologists. Therefore, students who are identified as both neurodivergent and multilingual—henceforth referred to as neurodivergent multilinguals—should receive both ELD and SPED services. In international high schools, ELD and SPED programmes often function separately, but recent research has argued for more collaboration (Christensen & Mitchell, 2018; Honigsfeld & Cohan, 2024). This article examines a tension between theory and practice in these fields. Specifically, how are the best practices from ELD and SPED reflected in the reality of academic writing instruction at a private, international boarding school? Academic writing requires students to use complex language features and formal conventions, which are particularly challenging for multilingual learners (Huynh & Skelton, 2023). For example, to exit ELD programming, students are usually required to write with advanced constructions such as subordinating conjunctions, passive voice, appositives and demonstrative pronouns. This challenge is only compounded for neurodivergent multilinguals who often struggle with the executive functioning skills required for this type of writing (Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). Executive functioning skills like working memory, inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility are particularly important in academic writing tasks (Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). Of course, all learners, not just neurodivergent multilinguals, may need support with these skills. However, neurodivergent students need explicit and systematic instruction around executive functioning skills, whereas neurotypical learners may not (Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). High executive functioning demands may prevent neurodivergent multilinguals from fully accessing the writing curriculum unless teachers use research-based instructional strategies from both ELD and SPED to meet their needs (Christensen & Mitchell, 2018; Graham & Harris, 2005; Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). Therefore, neurodivergent multilinguals should receive writing instruction that not only addresses their language needs but also teaches executive functioning strategies. Unfortunately, not all ELD teachers are trained in the best practices of SPED, and not all SPED teachers are also qualified in ELD. For example, I am a certified ELD teacher, but I do not have the SPED training to be able to serve the growing number of neurodivergent multilinguals in my classes, so I designed an action research project to address this need. Action research allows teachers to evaluate their current instructional practices. My action research focused on what other teachers at my school were already doing to support neurodivergent multilinguals with their writing. I teach at a private, international boarding school that is home to around 300 middle and high school students from 16 different nationalities. Although the language of instruction is English, approximately two-thirds of students are multilingual and speak another language at home. Around 90 students are in the ELD programme each year, and about a quarter of those students receive weekly, individualised learning support from special educators. These students were the focus of my action research. I began by selecting strategies from 10 different ELD and/or SPED studies and creating an observation protocol. Then, I used the protocol to observe six different teachers in English and social studies classes while they were working on writing assignments with neurodiverse (i.e. both neurodivergent and neurotypical) multilinguals. The teachers I observed already consistently use many of the instructional and learning strategies from the observation protocol. All the teachers used rubrics and checklists to communicate clear expectations for writing outcomes. They also parsed large writing tasks into smaller parts (i.e. chunking) and supported students throughout the writing process with graphic organisers and sentence stems or frames. Researchers suggest that these strategies are useful for all students but crucial in making writing tasks accessible to neurodivergent multilinguals (Christensen & Mitchell, 2018; Graham & Harris, 2005; Huynh & Skelton, 2023; Nichols, 1980; Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). Research also indicates that mnemonics like CER (claim, evidence, reasoning) or PEEL (point, evidence, explanation, link) can be especially effective in helping neurodivergent students write more organised and concise paragraphs (Graham & Harris, 2005; Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019; Troia, 2002). I saw several variations of these mnemonics being used across different content areas. What would the benefits for neurodivergent multilinguals be if teachers chose the same mnemonic for similar writing tasks across all content areas and grade levels? Across all content areas and grade levels, I noticed that neurodivergent multilinguals do not use learning strategies unless they are specifically prompted to do so, whereas all neurotypical multilinguals exhibit self-regulatory behaviours and problem-solving strategies without prompting. For example, I saw neurotypical multilinguals moving to sit in quiet workspaces, putting on noise-cancelling headphones to concentrate and rewriting sections of their work as they reread it. Neurodivergent multilinguals could also benefit from these learning strategies if they were explicitly taught (Strosnider & Sharpe, 2019). In sum, this action research has provided an overview of the most commonly used instructional and learning strategies for neurodivergent multilinguals at a private, international boarding school. Many research-based SPED and ELD instructional strategies are already being used. However, learning strategies, which are key for neurodivergent multilinguals, are not yet consistently part of the curriculum. Moving forward, teachers could better support neurodivergent multilinguals by aligning their use of mnemonics and explicitly teaching learning strategies. These learning strategies could be developed in collaboration with special educators and could be used across all content areas and grade levels. Through this type of observation and collaboration, international educators can better support neurodivergent multilinguals with academic writing and beyond. I gratefully acknowledge Leysin Educational Research (LASER) and the Multilingual Learning Research Center (MLRC) for their guidance and support throughout the research process. Special thanks to the teachers who participated in classroom observations. The author did not receive funding for this article. The author has no potential conflict of interest to declare. The study was conducted under the auspices of a research symposium that was hosted by the Multilingual Learning Research Center at the University of Wisconsin. The study received approval from the committee at Leysin American School's Educational Research Center. Informed consent from all participating teachers was received, and the data were anonymised. The data from this study is subject to restrictions from the European General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). To request access, please contact the author directly.