Transcript: Margaret J. McLaughlin, PhD

Though educators often confuse them, the terms accommodations and modifications are not interchangeable. Listen as Margaret McLaughlin further explains the distinction (time: 3:03).

Accommodation and modification, these are terms that get mixed up a lot. In fact, I think many people have different understandings of these terms, and sometimes they throw in the term adaptation, as well. We need to make a major distinction between an accommodation and a modification because there are major implications for how they are applied and what they mean for the learner. First of all, an accommodation does not change the content standard or the performance expectation. It could be as simple as putting a grip on a pencil to help a child who may have some writing problems write a little more smoothly. And it could move to very complex kinds of technologies that help students communicate. It is something that offsets the impact of the disability without changing the content standard or performance expectation.

In contrast, a modification actually changes, or alters, the content standard or the performance expectation. If a content standard requires that students be able to read a variety of texts—narrative texts, technical texts—critically and make inferences, or requires that the student be able to write for different purposes, we could imagine any number of accommodations that could help an individual with a disability meet that standard. But we must never change the idea that the student will read a variety of texts—and typically those texts must be at grade level—that they will be able to demonstrate that they can think critically and make inferences about the text and, indeed, whether they use a pencil, a pen, a word processor, or perhaps a specially adapted word processor, that they can write the required passages and do the required tasks.

Now, modification to those same standards might be a student who is only going to read narrative texts, and perhaps the text is going to be something that has a controlled vocabulary or in some way has been simplified because the individual has a significant reading disability. In this example, you have made a modification to the performance, but you are still requiring that the child read and that the child critique the text and make inferences. Keep in mind that, if you pull a child away from the curriculum, if you modify that curriculum, you’re also running a very good risk that that child is not learning some important material that is going to be assessed. And if we are really talking about improving learning and improving test scores for students with disabilities, we need to make sure that they are getting access to the right stuff.