Understanding Accommodations

More than ever, school personnel are responsible for providing high-quality instruction to all students. Together, the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and the Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA) have increased the expectation that students with disabilities will participate in the general education classroom as well as in state and district testing to the greatest extent possible. Unfortunately, students with disabilities often experience challenges or barriers that interfere with their ability to access and demonstrate learning. Barriers to learning can be associated with:

• The way information is presented (e.g., text, lecture)
• The way the student is required to respond (e.g., writing, speech)
• The characteristics of the setting (e.g., noise, lighting)
• The timing and scheduling of instruction (e.g., time of day, length of assignment)

What is an accommodation?

Teachers can address these barriers by providing students with accommodations—adaptations or changes in educational environments or practices that help students overcome the barriers presented by their disability. Two areas in which accommodations can be used are instruction and testing.

• Instructional accommodations are changes to the delivery of classroom instruction or the accompanying materials. Instructional accommodations change how students learn but do not change what they learn. In other words, they do not change the scope or range of the grade-level content standards, nor do they alter the complexity of the knowledge students are expected to learn. Students with disabilities who use instructional accommodations are required to learn the same content at the same level of proficiency as their peers who do not use instructional accommodations.
• Testing accommodations are changes to the format of a test or its administration procedures. Testing accommodations change how students are tested but do not change what a test measures. Commonly used testing accommodations include having the test read aloud, allowing for extended time, permitting scribes or dictation, and giving the test in a small-group setting.

Whether for instruction or testing, accommodations provide students with opportunities to achieve the same outcomes and to obtain the same benefits as students without disabilities. By addressing barriers, accommodations create better access to learning opportunities for students with disabilities. For some students, these barriers can be relatively simple to address. For example, a student who has difficulty with fine-motor skills and struggles to hold a pencil might require a pencil grip to help her write out her responses. For others, addressing the barrier can be more complex. For instance, a student who has a visual disability and cannot access written materials might require Braille materials. To better understand how accommodations can address barriers presented by a student’s disability, see the table below.

Accommodations provide support that allows students with disabilities to achieve the same instructional goals as students without disabilities. It’s important to note that accommodations:

• Do not change the expectations for learning
• Do not reduce the requirements of the task
• Do not change what the student is required to learn

Teachers should provide accommodations that meet the unique needs of each individual student. Not all students with the same disability or even those who experience the same barrier will benefit from the same accommodation. For example, not all students with visual impairments will benefit from Braille materials; some might be better served by audio books.

It is a common misconception that accommodations offer an unfair advantage to students with disabilities. Used appropriately, accommodations level the playing field, allowing students with disabilities the opportunity to perform tasks as well as students without disabilities.

Instructional Practices Often Confused with Accommodations

Teachers use a number of instructional practices to improve their students’ learning. It is not unusual for several of these—specifically, modifications, instructional strategies, and interventions—to be confused with accommodations. In the sections below, we’ll describe each of these practices and explain what makes them different from accommodations.

Modifications

Modifications are adaptations that change what students learn and are used with students who require more support or adjustments than accommodations can provide. Whereas accommodations level the playing field, modifications change the playing field. Unlike accommodations, modifications:

• Do change the expectations for learning
• Do reduce the requirements of the task

The table below lists some modifications that could address the barriers presented by students’ disabilities. Note that the modifications actually change or modify the expectations or requirements of the task.

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

View Transcript

Margaret J. McLaughlin, PhD
Professor and Associate Dean, Special Education
University of Maryland, College Park

Instructional Strategy or Intervention

Another way teachers often help struggling students is to implement an instructional intervention or strategy, both of which involve teaching the students to work through a series of steps to improve in an area of deficit or remediate a certain set of skills. Unlike accommodations, strategies or interventions do not specifically address the barriers presented by a student’s disability; rather, they address a skill or knowledge deficit. To further complicate matters, accommodations can be used in conjunction with interventions. The table below lists a few areas in which students often struggle and contrasts example instructional interventions or strategies with examples of accommodations that might be used to help students be successful in class.

Selecting an Accommodation

For some students with disabilities, instructional or testing accommodations are documented on their individualized education programs (IEP) or 504 plans. When this is the case, teachers are required to provide those accommodations. There are instances, however, when students with disabilities continue to struggle even with the accommodations in place or they begin to struggle in a new area. When either occurs, the teacher might want to try a new accommodation. If the teacher identifies a beneficial accommodation, the IEP team should convene to determine whether it should be added to the student’s IEP.

Before teachers can select an accommodation, they must first identify the barrier that is interfering with the student’s learning and consider how that barrier is affecting his or her performance. Identifying the student’s barrier can help the teacher to determine the type of accommodation that will likely support the student.

Accommodations are typically grouped into four categories: presentation, response, setting, and timing and scheduling. Teachers can use the table below to determine the type of accommodation that would best support the student given the student’s barrier.

Implementing an Accommodation

As mentioned above, when instructional or testing accommodations are documented on a student’s individualized education program (IEP) or 504 plan, teachers are required to provide them. For some students, accommodations are recommended for just one or two classes; for others, they are needed in all classes. By reviewing the student’s IEP or 504 plan, teachers can identify the accommodations and the context in which they should be implemented. As you will see below, there are a number of ways that teachers can help to maximize a student’s success with accommodations.

With careful planning and consideration, teachers can provide accommodations to their students effectively and efficiently. With individualized accommodations in place, these students are more likely to successfully access and demonstrate learning.

Accommodations can be bundled—that is, used in combination—depending on a student’s individual needs. It is possible to bundle accommodations within the same category (e.g., two presentation accommodations) or from different categories (e.g., presentation and setting accommodations). However, teachers might want to start by implementing only one accommodation. This will allow the teacher to collect data on a single accommodation, evaluate its effectiveness, and determine whether it is practical for use in the classroom. After effectively implementing one accommodation, the teacher can implement another that might benefit the student.

Candace Cortiella offers some suggestions about providing accommodations and sounds a cautionary note about providing too many (time: 1:09).

View Transcript

Candace Cortiella
Director, The Advocacy Institute
Washington, DC

Evaluating Effectiveness

To determine whether an accommodation is effective, teachers should evaluate whether it is having the desired impact on the student’s performance. To do this, teachers need objective, as opposed to subjective, data on which to base their instructional decisions. Teachers can evaluate students’ performance by following the steps outlined below.

Step 1. Determine how to measure the expected outcome. The type of data the teacher needs to collect will vary, depending on what aspect of the student’s performance they want to measure. To provide the most accurate picture of the changes in student performance they expect to see, the teacher can measure one of the following:

• Speed or rate: The amount of time a student takes to complete a task (e.g., the number of problems completed correctly in ten minutes)
• Accuracy: The number of problems or percent of the work that a student completes correctly (e.g., the percent of questions answered correctly on a test)
• Duration: How long a student engages in a specific behavior (e.g., time on-task during independent classwork)
• Frequency: The number of times a behavior occurs within a given period (e.g., the number of completed homework assignments per week; the number of times the student initiates a conversation)
• Latency: The time between when a direction is given and when the student complies (e.g., how much time passes between when an instruction is provided and the behavior begins)

Step 2. Collect data on the student’s current performance (i.e., baseline data). The teacher should first collect baseline data on the aspect of student’s performance she wishes to change. It is important to collect these data before implementing the accommodation so the teacher can compare the student’s performance before and after the accommodation is implemented. To collect these data, the teacher must use a data-collection form. These forms will vary depending on what aspect of the student’s performance is being measured. Click below to view examples of duration and frequency data-collection forms.

• Sample Accuracy Recording Form
• Sample Duration Recording Form
• Sample Frequency Recording Form
• Sample Latency Recording Form
• Sample Speed or Rate Recording Form

Step 3. Collect data during implementation of the accommodation. While implementing the accommodation, the teacher should collect data on the student’s performance using the same data collection method used to collect the baseline data. A good rule of thumb is to collect four to six data points before evaluating effectiveness.

Step 4. Evaluate the effect of the accommodation. The teacher can compare the implementation data to the baseline data to evaluate whether an accommodation has had the desired effect on a student’s performance. Often, the best way to do this comparison is to graph the data to create a visual representation of how the student has responded to the accommodation.

Click here for a sample graph that includes baseline and implementation data.

Consider Liam

Each day, Liam’s science teacher devotes the first portion of the period to independently reading a section of the textbook before discussing it with the class as a group. Recall that Liam has difficulty finishing science reading assignments in class in the allotted time due to his difficulty reading standard print materials. Follow along as the teacher evaluates the effectiveness of the selected accommodation, a digital textbook that allows him to enlarge the text.

Step 1 – Determine how to measure the expected outcome. Liam will record the number of pages he reads in the allotted time each day and the number of pages assigned.

Step 2 – Collect baseline data. Before providing a digital textbook of the science text, Liam records the number of pages of the assignment he reads each day over the course of five days. (See the data collection form and graph below.)

Step 3 – Collect implementation data. After introducing the accommodation, Liam records the number of pages of the assignment he completes for five days. (See the data collection form and graph below.)

Step 4 – Compare implementation data to the baseline data. To determine whether the accommodation was effective, the teacher and Liam graph the data. When they compare Liam’s baseline and implementation data, she determines that the accommodation has had a positive effect on Liam’s performance. (See the data collection form and graph below.)

Pre-Accommodation

Date	Number of Pages Read	Percent of Text Read
M 9/4	4/10	40%
T 9/5	3/7	43%
W 9/6	4/7	57%
TH 9/7	2/8	25%
FR 9/8	4/9	45%

Post-Accommodation

Date	Number of Pages Read	Percent of Text Read
M 9/11	7/10	70%
T 9/12	7/9	78%
W 9/13	6/7	86%
TH 9/14	8/8	100%
FR 9/15	10/10	100%

References