Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional How to get H.S. student to use his accomodations?

My DS16 (almost 17) has his pride. He's being doing much better than freshman year and as is age appropriate wants to take care of things HIMSELF. He has a 504 that includes items such as extra time for tests. College board has granted him extra time for the SAT, AP tests.

But the kid doesn't want to take advantage of this accommodation in class but it looks like he needs it. Last AP Bio tests he got a 98% on the multiple choice but he didn't have enough time and never even got to the short answer part that was 20% of the total ending up with a C+ on a test he should have done better on.

I just emailed the teacher & counselor. But I know I'm going to get grief from him about it. How do I convince him that he really should talk with his teacher about this. This teacher really is an excellent and reasonable teacher.

If it's any comfort, I hear this story all the time, and it's totally age-appropriate.

We have had some success with getting students to use their accommodations by taking some of it out of their hands. For example, the teacher simply gives him only the multiple choice portion on day one, and then gives him the short answer portion on day two.

We also encourage teachers to become comfortable with UDL (universal design for learning), allowing many students a menu of low-level accommodations, regardless of disability status, which not only benefits a wider range of students (and encourages deeper instruction, incidentally), but removes much of the stigma of using accommodations.

I've had many, many conversations with students about the difference between their performance with and without accommodations, and I emphasize that their work with accommodations is a better representation of their true selves than their unaccommodated work. It's not fair to oneself, or to other recipients (and, someday, beneficiaries) of one's work, to display only the cut-rate version of one's abilities to the world, rather than the full range.

Using appropriate accommodations is not cheating. NOT using appropriate accommodations is cheating yourself.

And incidentally, this improves student performance across the board. Not just their grades, but their performance.

bluemagic, our ds feels much the same way. What's happened over time is that he eventually is accepting of (and uses) accommodations once he realizes they really do help (and also faces course work challenging enough that he really needs the accommodation to finish his work). It also helps just getting over each initial hump of using a specific accommodation for the first time - and this seems to happen with almost every single accommodation for our ds. For instance, he was extremely reluctant to use his laptop in class for a long time because he didn't want to look different. First thing that helped was actually getting him to just do it (which was not easy at all lol) - which meant he had the experience of seeing that the other kids weren't going to act as if he had marbles growing out of his head etc. That helped a little bit, but what helped more was getting into classes where everyone used keyboards for all their work for a few years. Now he's back in a situation where not many students (usually none except for ds) are typing in class, but he's also in higher level classes now where the demands for writing are such that he knows he can't keep up, and he's a motivated student who wants to do well. So... that's how we got to the point with keyboarding where ds was actually using it routinely. We have another different type of AT we're encouraging him to try out now and we're facing once again the roadblock of ds not wanting to be using something different from other students.

One of the things that struck me about your question is that you specifically mentioned extended time on a classroom test. DS almost *never* uses this accommodation at school even if he needs it. When we've gone over the why, a lot of it is related to *how* it's employed - using an extended time accommodation is not convenient at all in high school - because you have to have a mutually agreed-upon way of accomplishing it. DS doesn't want to miss another class, but one of his teachers insists the only way she can make extended time "fair" (because ds has seen the test questions) is to have him stay in her room until he finishes. The *teacher* is ok with this arrangement, but ds isn't - he doesn't want to miss half of his next class and then have to make that work up. Other teachers will let him come in and work over lunch, but getting through a full school day for a kid with LDs can be long and tiring, and he needs his lunch break. He can stay after school, but not many teachers want to stay after school. So the fall out of all that is ds doesn't like to use his extended time testing accommodation.


Thanks for putting that into words so eloquently aeh - I am going to remember this quote!

Best wishes,

polarbear

eta - not sure if this comes into play for your ds bluemagic, but my ds wants to get along with his teachers and avoid what he perceives to be conflict. He's had a few teachers who are not happy about having to allow accommodations, and it's 100 times tougher to get him to advocate for himself and use his accommodations in those classrooms.

And in H.S. teachers can be reluctant because they are so worried about cheating. In this case I think it's fairly easy to let DS to the main part of the test (multiple choice) with the class. The teacher could give him a version without the last 20% (the short answer).

The school has set times twice a week for a student to makeup a test or get help from teachers. This is when students make-up if they are sick. He can then come in then and finish the test when kids who were sick would be making it up and the teacher could give him a reasonable amount of time just for that part. It would be fairly easy and not be too conspicuous.