Moving Beyond Retrofitting Accommodations

Technology-based accommodations have tremendous potential to improve the accessibility of tests for students with disabilities. However, this solution only borrows from the concept of UDL; it does not embrace it. If tests are to truly become universally designed, they must be created with consideration for a broad student population that includes students with disabilities. Otherwise, the ability of accommodations to level the playing field will be limited to what can typically be achieved with retrofit solutions.

As an example, consider Sylvia, a 10th grade student taking a science test. Sylvia must read a passage extracted from an earth science textbook and answer a set of questions to demonstrate that she understands the factors causing short- and long-term changes to the earth. Sylvia has dyslexia and is particularly challenged when reading text with complex syntax. Because of Sylvia's dyslexia, she was prescribed a read-aloud accommodation by her IEP team on science and math tests. With the test in digital format and with text-to-speech-capable reading software, Sylvia's deficit in word decoding is supported. However, Sylvia is still confused by the complex syntax of the test item, something that cannot be corrected through accommodations. As a result, Sylvia is at a disadvantage in interpreting the test question and thus at a disadvantage in demonstrating her mastery of the scientific concepts being tested.

The point illustrated here is that retrofitted accommodations often do not suffice. When this test item was created, an unintentional barrier was laid that prevented the test from accurately, assessing progress of many students vis-à-vis the learning goal. In Sylvia's case, we have confounded her knowledge and abilities in science with her skills as a reader. While reading ability should be a factor in a test of reading skills, it should not be a factor when assessing other subject areas. Unfortunately, reading ability remains a strong predictor of test performance, regardless of the subject area being tested. For assessments to be truly accurate, they must evaluate the knowledge and skills that are relevant to specific learning standards and only those knowledge and skills. While on the face of it, using the same assessment tools and procedures for each learner seems fair and equal, this approach yields inaccurate results for many students. Any test that relies on a single medium inevitably (albeit unintentionally) evaluates knowledge and skills that may not be germane to instructional goals. Thus, students' ability or inability to work with particular media and methods may confound their knowledge and skill. According to the joint standards on testing developed by the American Educational Research Association, the American Psychological Association and the National Council on Measurement in Education, when testing individuals with disabilities, we must ensure that scores "accurately reflect the intended construct rather than any disabilities and their associated characteristics extraneous to the intent of the measurement." While accommodations can be an effective means for providing students with disabilities access to a test, they can only go so far in correcting assessments that test extraneous knowledge and abilities, such as reading abilities in a science test.

We will now revisit the multiple representations concept to see how more accurate assessments can be created when the principles of UDL are applied to incorporate widespread student needs into the original design.