The work, in real life.

A district scheduled an annual IEP review for a fourth-grader receiving speech and occupational therapy. The mother spoke Brazilian Portuguese at home and limited English; the agenda, the draft IEP, and the consent forms were all in English. The team had previously asked an older sibling to interpret. This year the case manager decided that was not appropriate and called us.

Our interpreter was sent the draft IEP forty-eight hours in advance. She read it. She flagged two terms in advance — Extended School Year and functional behavioral assessment— that did not have a clean Portuguese equivalent and would need to be defined as they came up. At the meeting, the mother asked three questions she had never asked at a previous review. The team answered them. The plan was modified. She signed.

An occupational therapist had been making weekly home visits to a preschooler with developmental delays. The family spoke Mandarin. For months, the OT had been demonstrating exercises for the parent to continue between visits. Progress was uneven, and it was unclear whether the home practice was happening as designed.

We started attending the visits as the language partner. After three weeks, the OT said the conversations had changed: the parent was asking specific questions about the goals, correcting her own technique mid-exercise, and reporting back at the following visit. Nothing about the OT’s clinical work had changed. What changed was that the parent could understand what she was being asked to do.