Lindemann Chapter 6 on Piaget's Stage of Cognitive Development

I am by no means a Piaget expert. His theory of cognitive development is not unreasonable in a general sense, but it is quite presumptive. Much like those one size fits all blouses that you can buy at Rite Aid, his theory does not take into consideration individual differences. Lindemann discusses Piaget's theory quite well, but I am left wondering how Piaget's theory applies to ESL students, students with learning disabilities, and especially those students who do have learning issues but have slipped through the cracks of our educational system, undiagnosed, and we can't understand why they are struggling so hard. How do we best serve students who are not cognitively developed enough to learn at the level that we are teaching, due to forces unknown to both parties? What do we do for an eighteen old student who's reasoning is still dominated by perception or whose thinking is not bound to the concrete? What if a student's cognitive development is tested when they are over fifteen years old and it is determined that they are not performing at Piaget Formal Operations level? Do colleges offer special education teachers to assist college-level students? Does anyone have any suggestions/responses to these questions? Please shed some light if you can.