ELLIE: We wanted to get an idea
of what she could understand.
Because she hadn't
really learned
a formal sign language
in Mexico.
ELLIE: She was reading rooms
in a new country,
in a new environment in a
language she didn't speak and
able to get a lot
of her needs met.
They actually didn't know she
was deaf for a couple of weeks.
They thought that she was
just learning English.
ELLIE: I think it was one of
the more creative assessments
we had to do because none of the
typical tests fit the situation.
Sometimes I'm helping somebody
through the evaluation process,
maybe looking at native
language, because we want to
make sure that a disorder is
a true disorder and not just a
difference in learning
language or dialect or culture.
