Accommodations & Modifications

Remember those old accommodation checklists we all used to use? They might look something like this picture to the right. The checklists were great weren't they? They made everything so easy. We could sit down at the IEP meeting and go over the checklist with the parent and check everything we thought the student might need for this IEP. Good times.

That is until parents started coming back to schools with their child's IEP and asking tough questions like, "Are you doing all of the accommodations/modifications you said your were going to do on this checklist?" or "Is every teacher informed about the accommodations my child is supposed to have and are they implementing the accommodations?" and my personal favorite, "How do I know know the accommodations you said you were going to provide have been provided?"

It's not fun being asked those questions, especially when you aren't sure of the answers. Which is why we are recommending you throw away your accommodation checklist and never look back!

Now we don't want to leave you hanging without any support. So let's talk about how we can write accommodation & modifications in a way that will meet the student's needs and be more defensible.

According to ISBE, t he definition of accommodations are practices and procedures in the areas of presentation, response, setting, and timing/scheduling that provide equitable instructional and assessment access for students with disabilities. Accommodations reduce or eliminate the effects of a student's disability and do not reduce learning expectation. Different kinds of accommodations include: Presentation Accommodations, Response Accommodations, and Setting Accommodations.

Presentation Accommodations allow students to access information in ways that do not require them to visually read standard print. These alternate modes of access are auditory, multi-sensory, tactile, and visual.

Response Accommodations allow student to complete assignments, tests, and activities in different ways or to solve or organize problems using some type of assistive device or organizer.

Setting Accommodations change the location in which a test or assignment is given or the conditions of the assessment setting.