Reading over polarbear's post, I need to clarify that the need for instructional support in written expression does not absolutely lock a student out of higher-level social studies coursework, but it does make the placement much more questionable, certainly at the high school level, where written expression is not just one of many possible ways to assess content mastery, but blurs into being a course learning standard.
Accommodations, OTOH, simply provide access. They may include some instructional strategies that aren't part of the receiving teacher's repertoire, which is where persuasion and persistence come in. E.g.,:
1. supplementary oral assessment
2. speech-to-text
3. reduced length of written products (e.g., 2 pg instead of 5 pg report)
4. typed response/wordprocessing/spellcheck/grammar check
5. alternative assignments (e.g., oral presentation or slide presentation instead of written report)
All of these allow the teacher to assess progress on the content learning standards equivalently to that of non-disabled peers.
