This guide examines problems in the assessment, evaluation, and teaching of language minority children who come from diverse sociocultural backgrounds. School systems must find valid means to assess linguistic minority students and must offer instructional approaches that can facilitate growth and development. General guidelines for assessment include understanding the referral question, selecting assessment tools based upon reliability and validity, using caution in interpreting test results, employing more than one measure, and avoiding inferences not warranted by the tests. The guidelines are applicable when using such assessment tools as observations, interviews, objective personality inventories, or projectives. Sociocultural influences are likely to have a major impact on the student's performance on intellectual assessment, on evaluations of learning disabilities, and on the measurement of socioemotional adjustment. Care must be taken so that assessment procedures accurately measure the characteristic of interest rather than sociocultural factors. Teachers can provide an educational atmosphere that enhances the growth and development of all students by understanding their own as well as their students' cultural backgrounds, by incorporating ethnically diverse teaching materials in class, and by helping parents to become actively involved in the education of their children. References are included. (JDD)