Struggling Student

I am in an eighth grade math class for my 75 hour clinical. The math classes in this school are block (none of the others are). The teacher has 3 classes consisting of 19, 14, and 13 students. There is a boy in one of her classes who is truly struggling. This student does very little work, even in class, and does poorly on tests. I have seen the teacher (and I have as well) stand directly in front of the student and ask him a question. Sometimes it is as if he doesn't even hear you and others he looks right at you but does not seem to understand what you are saying. This student is very quiet but does have other students that he talks to. Even with step-by-step procedures for writing down and solving a problem the student does not do it. The counselor and teachers have been trying to get the student tested for special education eligibility for a few years now. They keep getting told they need more data on the student before anything can be done. Based on the student's reaction to work, class notes, and responses, it seems as if there is some type of processing issue in the student's brain. Sometimes you feel as if he does not even realize you are speaking English to him. According to the learning style survey the students took, this particular student is a kinesthetic learner. The teacher uses various teaching methods and activities in the classroom, however, nothing seems to work. So far we have been unable to hook onto a method that keeps the student's attention, interest and understanding for any amount of time. I did my PBL the other day with that class. The students were creating scatter plots in excel. As I read off the data they needed to input into their spreadsheets, this student entered every piece correctly and right along with me. I thought, yes he is going to do this assignment. Wrong! He tried a couple of things on the graph, lost his data twice, and then completely lost interest. Finally I stepped in to help. Together we reentered the data a third time and we talked through what needed done and how to do it. All of the other students in that class as well as another had gone in and changed the color of their plots to something they liked and some got very creative with the overall appearance of the graph. This boy did not want to add color or anything. He did what was completely necessary and then was finished! I am at a loss for what to try on this student next. How do I pull him into the lesson and get him to do something. I don't feel as if it is because he just doesn't care I truly think he just doesn't know! He doesn't know what to do, how to do it, where to start, how to keep going, or if/how he should ask questions.

Teacher Questions Verbatim

How did you come up with that answer? Explain it to me.
Whe you go to the mall, what are some of the things you can do?
What are we going to be studying?
What are integers?
What type of numbers?
What does your book say they are?
Look at the graph. If you have the expression x + 2 to find the y point, for what value(s) of x do I need to make sure I land above the x-axis?
What values of x do you need for x + (-3) to be above the x-axis?
How did we get 3 when we have 5 + (-2)?