Pete Answers Questions About Accommodations and Modifications

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Kelly writes

I would like to begin by saying that I have found your site to be useful both in my legal research and in my day-to-day work as an regular education inclusion teacher.

My question concerns the Related Services and Supplementary Aids page of the IEP. If a modification is marked, is the regular ed teacher required to include the modification on every test or activity they create?

For example, if "word bank" is marked, does the teacher have to include a word bank on everything? And what about a calculator - can the teacher make an assignment where students are not allowed to use calculators?

Pete answers

Thanks for your positive comments about the Wrightslaw site.

You will not find a clear answer to your question in the statute, regulations, or caselaw (all three of which are in our book, Wrightslaw: Special Education Law).

Your question goes to the specific skill or content area that is being taught and how learning (mastery of the skill or content area) will be measured.

For example, assume that the child is studying history. The school will measure the child’s learning on an essay test. Assume also that this child has severe dysgraphia (a learning disability in writing). Essay tests are also tests of penmanship. On essay tests, the child must produce information by putting pen to paper.

Will an essay test measure this child’s knowledge of history? Or will this essay test measure the child’s disability (inability to write)? In this case, an appropriate modification may be to allow the child to answer questions orally or to write answers using a computer. The purpose of testing is to find out what the child has learned.

My Big Gripe About Special Education

Children with disabilities are often not taught how to write, read, spell or do arithmetic in special education. Special education often tries to make things easier for the child (lowering the bar) with modifications and accommodations. Special educators often believe (erroneously) that if a child has a disability, the child cannot learn these skills. In most cases, they are wrong.

This is my big gripe about special education.

Diana Hanbury King: Pete Will Have to Work Harder - and So Will His Teachers!

Some people know that I was diagnosed with dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, and ADD/ADHD in the early 1950s. I was lucky. My parents arranged for me to be tutored by Diana Hanbury King. Diana King used Orton-Gillingham methods to teach me how to read, write, spell and do arithmetic. Later, Diana King founded the Kildonan School in Amenia, New York.

Diana King is an iron lady. Her position was, "Okay, Peter has a disability. Mom and Dad, this means Peter will have to work much harder to acquire these skills (reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic)."

"His teachers will also have to work harder to make sure we teach him the right way – so he acquires these skills."

"We will not accept anything less than hard work because this is what is necessary for Peter to master these skills."

"If we lower the bar for Peter, he will never be able to make it in the real world."

I dedicated our book to Diana King and to Roger Saunders (my counselor –because of their hard work, I learned how to read, write and do arithmetic.

Calculators and Math Skills

You asked about using calculators on a math test.

I believe children must learn math skills - calculators are good tools but calculators do not remove the need to learn math skills. For example, I believe children must learn (memorize) their times tables up to 12 X 12 = 144. This means repetition, repetition, repetition, over and over, using flash cards, using multi-sensory approaches, hands on, so the child masters the times tables and their responses become automatic.

The child may still rotate the + to an X or write columns of numbers in a sliding shifting leaning Tower of Pisa. But these errors are not because the child is ignorant of basic math skills (multiplication tables) and are due more to dysgraphia than dyscalculia. The child should be taught how to correct for these errors too.

Memory Skills

Memory is another skill that should be taught and learned – this is important for those of us who have terrible memories. We need to learn how to strengthen our memories. This is why we put memory books by Harry Lorayne in our bookstore.

Shifting – Dr. Marcia Invernizzi at the University of Virginia teaches children with Down Syndrome to read on the 6th grade level.

Communications Problems in Severe and Profound Disabilities

Shifting again – For children with severe and profound disabilities, their true primary disability often involves communication. If the child can't communicate, the child appears to be retarded. If the child appears to be retarded, the child’s teachers will not have high expectations.

Years of low expectations take their toll. Test scores go down. Finally, the child tests out as retarded. Why? The child’s brain was not used - abilities were untapped.

Helen Keller

Shifting - How did Helen Keller go from being an unruly retarded child who was blind and deaf to a woman who wrote books, traveled, and spoke before groups?

Helen Keller learned to communicate because she had intensive remediation from Annie Sullivan. Annie Sullivan’s work with Helen Keller was very much like the ABA-Lovaas therapy programs for young children with autism – intensive, individualized, one-on-one, for several hours a day.

Shifting – I remember a child I represented who was retarded and also had CP. The child’s mother wanted him out of the self-contained program for "severe and profound children." But he always tested below 70 on IQ tests so the school wouldn’t change his placement.

We got new evaluations by an experienced psychologist who was aware of the communications problems. This child ended up scoring around 110 on an IQ test. He was finally able to get out of the self-contained program.

Later, he joined forces with a designer of equipment for persons with disabilities. They designed a new, improved, less expensive head pointer system that could be used with a keyboard.

Once a year or so, I read a well-written "Letter to the Editor" by him.

Kelly, you got answers to more questions than you asked. But your email was the first one I saw this beautiful morning. The coffee is hot and it tastes good.

Pete