Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional Making a record for future testing accommodations

I'm just thinking about the future and I'm curious if anyone might have some tips.

DS8's eval. recommends numerous accommodations for high stakes testing. We are opting out of our state test for third graders and could do so for future grades too. He gets accommodations at school but what type of record should we establish so he gets accommodations when he takes the SAT and ACT?

Also, while we'd probably submit it all, I'm curious if medical condition based accommodations requests are treated differently (maybe more likely to be approved?) than those from a neuropsych evaluation.

Here's a DOJ technical memo. It seems to say a history of prior testing accomodations is sufficient, but I don't know how this is being implemented IRL.

https://www.ada.gov/regs2014/testing_accommodations.pdf

CB and ACT are private entities, and may get away with making their own rules. Note the words "should generally grant" throughout the DOJ document.

That being said, a motivated school (such as the one I work for), can generate a fairly high success rate for getting accommodations approved. Typically, we ask for 50% (standard) extended time, typed response, and/or read-aloud (though we attempt this one only with pretty strong documentation of fairly significant disability). Sometimes, 100% extended time. The key is that the school needs to ask for specific accommodations, and have all documentation on hand. It doesn't work as well if the documentation is extremely old or sloppy, or if you just hand them an evaluation and expect them to provide every accommodation in the report.

I would think twice about opting out of standardized testing. My understanding is that the College Board/ACT people want to see a history of actually using the accommodations being asked for. If your child never takes a standardized test with accommodations, that history, at least with standardized testing, isn't there.

Inexpert opinion: I have a feeling the question of how closely private testing entities will have to adhere to this will be tested in the courts over the next few years.

My first tip: expect things to be different by the time your ds is in high school, and recognize that there's no way to predict *how* they'll be different. We started thinking about what to do about high stakes testing accommodations when my ds was around 10 years old, so we planned as best we could to cover our bases to be sure he'd be eligible for accommodations. Some things did change, but it worked out a-ok. The first thing I'd do, in your situation, is to ask the neuropsych who made the recommendation for accommodations for high stakes testing what you should be doing now to be sure he will have his best chance at qualifying.


Why are you opting out of state testing? I'd seriously consider taking the state testing (with accommodations if he has them in place). In most states there's really no downside to taking the testing other than the time spent taking the test - scores go on a child's record, but unless you're worried that they will be low and keep him out of a program that you'd like to be in, I wouldn't worry about the scores. The important thing is having that record of having tested with accommodations.


Is he in a public school? If so, does he have a 504 or IEP that states he has accommodations? If it's not a public school, you can have an administrator from the school generate a letter stating the accommodations he uses in class and for testing. If he's in public school, routinely using accommodations, and *doesn't* have a 504, I'd request a 504 hearing.


There is specific advice at the College Board website re what documentation is required. Our ds has both medical record and neuropsych evals as proof of his disability. Rather than overthink what to send in, I sent it all in.

It's easy to worry about qualifying when you read much online, but fwiw, students who have disabilities at least sometimes do get approved for accommodations on the first request - our ds did. What we did, whether it made any difference or not, was to send in all the documentation we had from every eval he'd ever had (at school and private), which included proof of accommodations used from 4th grade through high school, as well as a brief cover letter summarizing ds' challenge and how it would impact testing (this letter was based on what was stated as needed at the CB website), and a summary list of the evals we were sending.

One thing that did happen to us, however, is that our high school refused to make the accommodations request for our ds (which is what the College Board wants to happen)... so we had to file independently of the school (which is still allowed by the College Board... ACT has recently changed to not allow this except for home school students).

Best wishes,

polarbear

I would echo pb on thoughtfully weighing the pros/cons of opting out. If you are in one of the many PARCC or SBAC states, there are numerous embedded accommodations that are accessible to all students, can be pre-selected by the principal's designee, or can be activated via an IEP/504. These include wordprocessing supports, calculator, read-aloud/text-to-speech, individual testing (w/or w/out a familiar test administrator), noise buffers, item masking, adjustable color/contrast, and limited glossaries. A smaller selection is available for paper-based testing. If he is to use accommodations on future high-stakes testing, you might want to consider allowing him to use state testing to practice and become comfortable with them in an on-demand setting.

I also suspect that, by the time my one for whom this might be relevant reaches them, the SAT/ACT may look quite different, especially from an accessibility standpoint.

Thanks everyone for the thoughtful responses. To answer the questions raised...

He's is in private school. He does not have an IEP or 504.

On the opt out, We might decide to see if he can get into the gifted program next year and I'm not sure that he'll do well on the test.

We are happy with his current school but afraid they might discontinue the upper elementary program next year. His teachers said their students usually do fine on the tests but that they don't really show what they know because the format is unfamiliar.

He leans towards the anxious side and I didn't want his first real testing experience to be something he's not at all prepared for. It just seems kind of unfair.