What should teachers know about accommodations for students with disabilities?

Page 2: Practices 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 characteristics set them apart 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 be used to address the barriers presented by students’ disabilities. Note that in each instance, the modification actually changes or modifies the expectations or requirements of the task.

Disability Category	Barrier	Possible Modification
Visual disability	Reading printed text	Alternate assignment
Specific learning disability	Decoding text	Read a lower-level book
ADHD	Remaining focused	Fewer homework questions
Orthopedic impairment	Writing out responses (due to inability to hold a pencil)	Shorter report

Though often confused, the terms accommodations and modifications are not interchangeable. Listen as Margaret McLaughlin further elaborates on the distinction (time: 3:03).

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

View Transcript

Transcript: Margaret J. McLaughlin, PhD

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.

Instructional Strategy or Intervention

In addition to providing accommodations and modifications, teachers often help struggling students by implementing 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 to 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 experienced by students with or without disabilities. To further complicate matters, accommodations can be used in conjunction with interventions. The table below lists a few areas in which students often struggle. Example instructional interventions or strategies are contrasted with examples of accommodations that might be used to help students be successful in class.

Area of Deficit	Example Instructional Intervention or Strategy	Example Accommodations
Reading comprehension	Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) x Collaborative Strategic Reading (CSR) A multi-component approach to reading improvement in which students apply comprehension strategies while reading expository text in small cooperative-learning groups.	Visual cues (e.g., color coding key information) Digital text that provides definitions Alternate formats (e.g., diagrams, pictures, hands-on activities)
Mathematics computation	Mnemonic device (e.g., Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally)	Calculator Concrete objects or manipulatives Printed copy of multiplication table
Regulating behavior	Self-monitoring of behavior x self-monitoring A cognitive-training technique that requires individuals to keep track of their own behavior and record it in writing.	Separate setting (e.g., different room for testing) Preferential seating (e.g., near teacher) Study carrels

Activity

Each of the following scenarios introduces a student with a disability and identifies his or her related challenge. For each student, the teacher implements several types of supports. Determine whether each support is an accommodation, modification, or strategy/intervention.

Danica, a student with a learning disability (LD), struggles with writing. Her teacher assigns the following class project: research a planet using a minimum of three sources and then write a five-paragraph essay about that planet. Because Danica produces few complete sentences and ideas when given a writing task, her teacher implements several types of support to help her complete the assignment.

The teacher reminds Danica to use TREE (Topic sentence, Reason, Explanation, Ending), a mnemonic device students can use to organize their ideas.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention TREE is a strategy that outlines the steps for writing an essay.
The teacher highlights key information in the research materials that Danica collects.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention By highlighting key information in Danica’s materials, the teacher helps her to identify main ideas; however, this does not change the learning expectation, which is to write a five-paragraph essay.
The teacher shortens the writing assignment to one paragraph containing three facts.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Shortening the writing assignment is a modification because it alters the learning expectation.

Brody, a 6th-grade student with ADHD, has difficulty organizing his time. His social studies teacher assigns a long-term project that involves researching the history of their town. The assignment includes the following requirements: visit the local library to complete a demographic information sheet, interview three people who have lived in the town since childhood, and create a presentation using that information. Because the teacher knows that Brody has difficulty completing long-term assignments by the due date, she implements several types of support to help him to do so.

The teacher breaks the assignment into smaller pieces or “chunks” the materials (e.g., week 1—visit the local library to complete demographic information sheet; weeks 2 and 3— interview three people who have lived in the town since childhood).	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Breaking the assignment into smaller pieces is an accommodation because it does not change the learning expectation for the student.
The teacher helps Brody to better schedule and monitor his time.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Teaching the student to schedule and monitor his time is a time-management strategy.
The teacher allows Brody to complete a series of worksheets on the history of the town instead of the project.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Completing a series of worksheets on the history of the town is an alternate assignment that changes the expectations for learning and the requirements of the task.

Aliyah, a middle school student with muscular dystrophy, often experiences physical fatigue. She is a highly motivated student and excels academically. Her language arts, mathematics, science, and social studies teachers typically assign homework that requires access to textbooks. Because her teachers realize that carrying heavy textbooks home each night is difficult for Aliyah, they implement several types of support to help her complete her assignments.

The teachers provide access to online textbooks.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Providing access to online textbooks is an accommodation because it does not change what the student is required to do; it simply removes the barrier—lack of physical strength— which results in her inability to carry textbooks.
The teachers assign a different assignment that does not require the textbooks.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Providing a different assignment that does not require the textbook is a modification because it changes the expectations for learning.
The teachers allow Aliyah to keep a set of textbooks at home.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Allowing her to keep a set of textbooks at home is an accommodation because it does not change what the student is required to do; it simply removes the barrier—lack of physical strength—which results in her inability to carry textbooks.

Ahmed, a high school student with an intellectual disability, reads at a 2nd-grade level. Because he has difficulty with decoding words, he is not able to read fluently enough to comprehend the grade-level text. His special education teacher has noticed that he typically understands and remembers the information that she presents orally. For this reason, his teacher implements several types of support to help him succeed in the classroom.

The teacher allows Ahmed to use text-to-speech software for grade-level materials, which allows the text to be read to him.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Text-to-speech software is an accommodation because it allows the student to access the content but does not change the learning expectation. In this case, the learning expectation is comprehension, not decoding.
The teacher explicitly teaches phonics to improve Ahmed’s decoding skills.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Explicitly teaching phonics is a strategy to improve a student’s decoding skills.
The teacher gives Ahmed a lower-level reader that provides fewer facts and details but aligns with the grade-level content.	Accommodation Modification Strategy/intervention Providing a lower-level reader is a modification because it changes the expectations for learning.

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