<p>My son was just turned down for time and a half by the College Board. I'm really upset because he's had the accommodation since 4th grade (ADHD) and am wondering about next steps. I am now beginning to think I chose a bad tester. The decision letter said that he showed some variation in academic subtests but not enough to impede his functionality on the exams. I'm wondering if it would be helpful to have him retested on the academic portion by someone else. I have the feeling that the tester was not terribly savvy about how to word things - even how to administer the academic testing. What he did NOT do was give the same tests timed and untimed. Also he tested my son off his meds.
I'm honestly wondering if it's worth appealing. I KNOW my son has ADHD. He takes concerta, is disorganized and skips stuff, makes careless mistakes, plus has slow processing time in organizing his thoughts for essays. The problem may be that he's quite bright (as are many ADD kids) and therefore is never going to test below average on academic material though he did on some of this processing speed stuff.
Anyway, I'm needless to say quite disappointed. Another problem may have been the school sent in the initial request for the accommodation without the psycho-ed report (without my knowing) so the psycho -ed report was then sent in later and I think this was seen as an appeal. </p>
<p>Extra time does not really help those with ADHD. Giving them the same time but breaking up the sections with breaks and giving more time between sections might help. Your child was tested without meds so that problems with ADHD would be apparent. Had he been on medications, then the attention issues would not be apparent-if the medication is effective. And great if it is effective because that is a much better intervention than is extra time. The potential attentional issues with ADHD are not assessed by testing with and without extra time. ADHD is diagnosed by looking at a pattern of responses to subtests of (usually) an IQ test, along with the pattern of responding to tasks explicitly designed to assess attention. There are specific subtests of the IQ test that are sensitive to the deficits experienced by people with ADHD. Thus, someone can have a very high overall score (as you note, very bright) but show a pattern of responding across the different tasks of the test that reveal attention issues. So the tasks that involve more attention (and/or other executive functions known to be impaired in children with ADHD) would be depressed relative to scores on other tasks that demand less attentional resources. If administered correctly, the tests are so standardized that two different testers would result in the same findings. </p>
@lostaccount and @mollysmom49, our experience is that extra time may help, although breaking it up into segments might have worked as well. My daughter was diagnosed with ADHD at the beginning of sophomore year in HS – lots of indications before but she had major league medical problems that sidelined us. She was always very anxious. The Test of Variables of Attention is a continuous performance test that provides information about an individual’s sustained attention, speed and consistency of responding, and behavioral self-regulation – all aspects of attention and executive functioning known to be compromised in those individuals with attentional disorders. In her case, iit strongly suggested that extra time would help. In fact, with the extra time, she wouldn’t panic about finishing and would typically, but not always, finish in the allotted time. But, even when she didn’t use the extra time, the knowledge that she had it made a huge difference. Both extra time and Ritalin helped a lot.
Her HS grades went from B freshman year to B+/A- sophomore year to A- and then A junior and senior years. The extra time kicked in for sophomore year and she started taking Ritalin her junior year.
@mollysmom49, if you search for threads by me and use the keywords appeal and possibly dyslexia (my son) or ADHD (my daughter), you will find descriptions of how I appealed (successfully) to the College Board for my son and the the ACT for my daughter. All has worked out well.
When the school sent in the request, did they indicate that he is using the accommodations today? One reason I have heard that College Board turns down a request sometimes is if they think the student isn’t currently getting & using the same accommodations being requested from them.
Be sure to appeal. Here are a few thoughts that may help you with your appeal:
- Be sure extended time is listed as an accommodation on your child’s school plan and that it is submitted to College Board.
2)You may ask your examiner to write a letter to College Board expressing how extra time would help this child with this diagnosis.
3)Google “College Board Teacher Survey”. You may to choose 2 or 3 teachers who give your child accommodations in their class and have them fill out this survey expressing how accommodations help your child.
4)If you have copies of all accommodations over the years as well as initial testing, any other testing, and up to date testing, be sure to include those when sending in documentation.
- Read the denial letter from College Board closely. Often this can help you with knowing what additional information is needed for an appeal.
I handle accommodations appeals for my students (all ADHD/LD kids) on a very regular basis. There are a hundred things that can derail you, but it’s almost always issues with the documentation (either by the school or the diagnostician). I can say going to a different evaluator is probably a bad idea since they already have a copy of the original report, though you may want to pursue additional testing if you plan to apply to the ACT, too. Feel free to PM me if you’d like to share more specifics. Hang in there.
My 15 year old ADHA daughter was also denied time and a half. I talked to someone at college board on the phone, and I don’t think there is a tester problem, a paperwork problem, or anything any of us did wrong. I think it is just their opinion that the professional testing shows that it’s just not bad enough of a problem for them, even if the school disagrees. I’m sure they wouldn’t give actual numbers of the subtests and such that WOULD pass muster with them, but I think it would be difficult for an ADHD kid to appeal. I will look at shawbridges stuff next, because I do plan to try with the ACT. I think that will be her better test anyway, although the SAT is changing. She took the SAT last weekend and just cried, and said even the 12 year old said it was easy, and she was no where near finishing. She makes A’s in honors classes in school, including an AP class, but it takes her forever to do her homework and she gets extra test time.
My daughter is like mollysmom49 and shawbridge. I am disappointed as well because I have 3 kids, and I’ve seen with two of my kids, that if they get extra time on the SAT their scores would not go up by much at all, and with my ADHD kid, there’s a big difference. She is pretty smart, but very anxious with low working memory, fluency, attention, etc. We just started Adderall this year and although it doesn’t solve all her problems, it still felt like a miracle. If this test doesn’t show her aptitude or intelligence, I need to have it not be a part of her applications!
I think I read the correct thread from shawbridge, dated 2010. You were able to show those timed and untimed scores. Although I sent them a huge stack of documentation, I didn’t have those! I saw that argument about accommodations are to level the playing field and not give someone a boost (someone smart with ADHD who doesn’t “need” a boost) and there was one school counselor who tried making that argument about my daughter but the other counselors voted him down. She works her @ss off for those A’s. That man doesn’t understand that if she didn’t have ADHD it would take her a lot less time. I’m sure in the fall her 504 will be revoked when they see the A’s on her transcript. But I think she might get away with informal help from her teachers if we explain the situation. Who knows, maybe there will be a sympathetic teacher.
Newcrew’s posts are excellent. First, read the denial letter carefully and see what the denial was based on. There may be reason to do some additional testing, and IIRC, TCB usually wants your child ON meds during testing, if the student typically takes meds,to see their abilities when the disability is addressed/managed/ameliorated with meds. TCB has many links on their website that address exactly what they need to see that documents the diagnosed disability, how it affects your child’s daily functioning , how it affects your child’s ability to have equal access to the test, and why the requested accommodation is necessary. They will require at least 7 weeks from receipt of any additional documentation to review it and consider the appeal, so keep that in mind. Good luck!