Accommodations for Assessment
Types of Accommodations
The precise name and type of an accommodation varies a bit from assessment to assessment, but in general, accommodations consist of the following:
- extended time (50% additional time or 100% additional time) for parts of or the entire assessment
- extra/extended breaks
- testing over multiple days
- permission for food, drink, blood-sugar testing during testing
- large print
- reader (for some tests, this is provided by text-to-speech or other technology-based methods)
- scribe
- physical adaptations (wheelchair desks, computer for writing, etc.)
- alternative assessments (Alternative-ACCESS, DLM-AA)
Please note that not all assessments support all accommodations.
Assigning Accommodations
A student's accommodations are determined as part of the IEP or 504 process. If you have questions about your student's accommodations, please contact their case manager or the school psychologist.
Testing with Accommodations
A student who has been assigned accommodations has a legal right to test with those accommodations as approved by the assessment vendor/overseer (i.e., College Board, ISBE). The accommodations are applied to each assessment in slightly different ways depending upon the assessment (i.e., students with extended time on the PSAT or SAT must use all of their extended time and cannot move onto to another section until all the accommodated time has been used, but students with extended time on AP exams may move onto another section once the standard time has been used). If you have questions about the application of your student's accommodations with particular assessments, please contact their case manager, the school psychologist, and/or the assessment director.
Declining Accommodations
Students may decline to use their assigned accommodation(s) on specific assessments. Please contact their case manager, the school psychologist, and/or the assessment director for the process to decline an accommodation as it varies from assessment to assessment.
Questions or Concerns about Accommodations
In general, your student's case manager or the school psychologist is in the best position to answer questions about accommodations, but you may also contact the assessment director as well.
Andrew Deines
Assistant Director of Assessment & Data
(708) 424-2000 x2512