I had a teacher recently express concerns over accommodations provided to a student who identified with learning disabilities. With the way she told me about the accommodations, she was very concerned that the accommodations were not appropriate at the adult education level. But in reading the actual accommodations offered to the student, they do not seem unreasonable.
I come from a K-12 background so I am used to the accommodations available to students at that level. These accommodations seem comparable to those a student would have been used to in his/her secondary education. They include a reader and a scribe. The student dictates to the scribe the answers and the scribe writes down what the student says. They student either copies in his own hand or types out the answers for submission.
The teacher expressed concerns that she was never getting a clear indication of the student's reading ability but rather his listening ability. In K-12 students who qualify for having a reader on a standardized test cannot have the actual reading passages of a reading test read to them. The concerned teacher seems to believe that this student had the reading passages of his reading test read to him and thus scored higher on the test than he is actually capable of performing. With the accommodations, he is performing at the same level as the other students in the class. Without the accommodations, it is unlikely he would be able to keep up with the course work.
Are these accommodations reasonable at the adult education level? Is the concerned teacher justified in her concerns? Again, coming from a K-12 background, I saw many students thrive with their grade level content with similar accommodations, but I am new to adult education. Is there an age or level where accommodations cease to be appropriate? I know most post secondary institutions have and offer services, but when this student reaches the goal of securing employment, he is not going to have someone reading and writing for him (which was the concerned teacher's biggest point). How do we meet student needs while at the same time preparing them for the harsh realities of the real world?
Thanks for your insight and experience!!!
Comments
Hi, Amy, thank you for your comments and questions. Accommodations are indeed a complex area, and I make no claim to legal expertise. Accommodations are not designed to give the student unfair advantage, rather to accommodate a disability, which seldom changes with age. If the accommodations you described were recommended by a licensed practitioner and they were deemed "reasonable" under the law, then in essence what they were doing was accommodating the diagnosed disability so the adult could learn. For purposes of our discussion, it seems this adult learner was not only aware of accommodations but chose to disclose so that he could access them in the learning environment. I'd like to open up the discussion t others who might be able to share similar experiences and how they or the learners dealt with it. We have a lot to learn from each other!
This is a question that I have also struggled with as I've moved from working with students with learning disabilities in the K-12 setting to working with learners in an adult education setting. While it's true that we are legally obligated to provide reasonable accommodations to learners with documented disabilities, I think that this can get tricky when working with adults, particularly for those who are preparing for exams such as the GED. There are two things that I keep in mind when considering accommodations for adult learners.
First, I always consider the overall goal for a lesson or an assessment. If the goal is to see if students can apply math computational skills to an application problem, reading the problem aloud to them won't get in the way of that goal, nor would writing their work down for them. If the goal of the lesson is to analyze a word problem, again, I don't think that a read aloud accommodation would be unreasonable. If the goal is to decode the words in a word problem, then it would not be appropriate to read it aloud because they would not be using that decoding skill that we are focusing on. It get's messier when we talk about language arts, but often when reading the goal is to analyze the text, not decode it, in which case reading it aloud would be reasonable. (If students need to learn to decode, that's a different kind of lesson, and one in which a read aloud accommodation would not be appropriate.) When writing, if the goal is to structure an essay or paragraph or support an argument, dictating is likely reasonable. By the way, I think that these are "accommodations" that we might consider for all students, as this kind of practice follows the principles of Universal Design for Learning. The difference is that we may be legally obligated to provide such accommodations to students with disabilities.
Second, since our adult learners often to come to us to get help preparing for an exam, we should be mindful of what accommodations will be provided when the individual takes the test. If we have current testing, it might be worth submitting that testing and requesting accommodations before the student is actually ready to test (accommodations approvals are good for up to a year for the GED) to see what the learner might get approved for. If they are approved for a scribe or to have sections read aloud we should encourage the learner to use these accommodations in the classroom to get a sense for how to use them most effectively. If they are not approved, we need to think about how we can prepare the learner to pass the test without the accommodations, which might be a reason to (sometimes) not provide them with accommodations that we might think they need.
Finally, as for preparing learners for the "harsh realities" of the real world, individual with documented disabilities are also eligible for reasonable accommodations in the work place. So it's worth thinking about how we might help them prepare to disclose their disabilities and request accommodations (if that's what they want to do).
Hi, Lindsey, Amy and DAE Members -
Lindsey, thanks for your perspective on providing accommodations to adult learners. The two points you mention when considering accommodations for adult learners are good questions for all of us to ask ourselves.
1. What is the goal of testing/assessment; what is it evaluating? Will the accommodation have an impact on the testing/assessment results that will skew our understanding of their academic abilities?
2. Will these accommodations also be provided on standardized testing for academic or industry/career certification?
Amy, on the topic of discussing work place disclosure with adult learners and requesting accommodations, a good resource is the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission's website on Disability Discrimination. On this site, you'll find definitions of key terms relating to the provision of accommodations in the workplace. The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires an employer to "provide reasonable accommodation to an employee or job applicant with a disability, unless doing so would cause significant difficulty or expense for the employer". The law goes on to define a reasonable accommodation as "any change in the work environment (or in the way things are usually done) to help a person with a disability apply for a job, perform the duties of a job, or enjoy the benefits and privileges of employment".
Best,
Mike
Thank you, Lindsey, for sharing your perspectives on keeping learning goals and testing in mind. I'd like to follow up a bit on your comment on Universal Design for Learning. A website Mike and I have talked about recently is parentcenterhub.org, a website for parents of children with disabilities that has a wealth of resources; one of their pages points to the Iris Center at Vanderbilt University. The Iris Center offers a professional development module on Universal Design for Learning for those who are interested in knowing more: http://iris.peabody.vanderbilt.edu/module/udl/.
You and Amy also brought up the idea of reasonable accommodations in the workplace. Having the right information on accommodations and being prepared to advocate for themselves will help prepare them for success in the workplace. Interested members might want to take a look at the Jobs Accommodation Network webpage on accommodations for adults with LD at: https://askjan.org/media/LD.html. This site offers employers a really wide range of accommodations, as well as links to additional resources.
Appreciate all these comments today!
Margaret