<p>God bless him. It is a difficult disease but one that can increase character. My brother has T1 Diabetes, was also very bright, got offered a full ride engineering scholarship.</p>
<p>I have two âtwice exceptionalâ sons with severe processing disordersâas in, their processing IQâs are 60-80 points below their verbal IQâs. My older son is at an Ivy receiving even more accommodations than he received in high school and in what is, most definitely, a friendlier environment for LD students than his public high school was. (So, parents/students, PLEASE donât listen to nonsense from posters who know little about what accommodations are available in college, grad school and the work place. They ARE available at every school I know of, though some schools are more welcoming to LD students than others). My younger son will be applying to colleges next year.</p>
<p>To answer the OPs original question, in the case of my older son, he did not use extra time his sophomore year on the PSAT and scored 213. He did use extra time his junior year and scored 210. He still made NMF, but it was an uncomfortable summer until the qualifying scores came out. Who knows why he scored lower the second year? He always refused to do ANY sort of preparation for standardized testing because he felt that the hard core test prep that was prevalent in his school equated in some way to gaming the system or something. Anyway, had he done any prep work common amongst juniors prior to the PSAT, Iâm sure his score would have been higher. But, that was about as pure a result as you could get to compare extra time vs. no extra time. ;)</p>
<p>As for other tests, he took the ACT in April of Junior year for the first time and with no extra time and scored 33, but that testing also was not with writing. With extra time and with writing (which always lowers his scores), he scored 34 in Oct of Sr Yr and 35 in Nov (without Writing, he would have had a 36). Once again, he did no test prep between tests other than school work.</p>
<p>As for APs, he took five APs his sophomore year with no accommodations. Two of the testsâChem and Physicsâwere âself-studyâ (though he didnât study for them) because the teachers refused to accommodate him in class (yes, I know thatâs a violation of federal law, but itâs also a discussion for a different thread, LOL). Anyway, he scored 3s, 4s and 5s on his tests. Do I think his scores would have been higher had he had accommodations that year? Absolutely. My guess is that they would have gone up by a point, mainly because of the essay sections. Regardless, there is no way to prove that. His junior and senior APs were all accommodated. Hard to say whether his scores were affected by the accommodations since he only took them once, except for Physics, which he made a 3 on in 10th grade w/o accommodations and a 4 on in 11th grade with accommodations.</p>
<p>Now, onto my soapboxâŠI get REALLY annoyed by parents/students who feel that students with LDs are âgaming the systemâ if their scores are above average without accommodations, and they dare to seek accommodations that allow them to demonstrate their TRUE mastery of the test material. That is SO discriminatory and embarrassing, especially coming from those who resort to myriad contortions in order to game the system in THEIR direction. If my son can score a 4 in AP Chem as a sophomore without any preparation or ever even taking the class, is it really so unfair to you or your student who struggles with the class all year and preps out the wazzoo just to pass the test, for my son to have enough time to demonstrate his TRUE mastery of the subject, without being penalized for his inability to finish the essay sections, making grammatical errors that come with rushing, etc? Clearly, he knows the material. If he scores higher than you/your student, itâs because he knows the material better, not because he had more time. Do you really believe itâs unfair for him to use accommodations to level the playing field if he can pass the test with a score that is lower than what he could score if he were answering verbally, even if he has the knowledge to score a 5 taking it verbally or with extra time?</p>
<p>When my son took the SAT, he scored 800 CR, 800 M and 690 Writing/9 Essay. The score he was most proud of was that 690/9 (He doesnât usually use extra time on the MC sections, only Writing). He took SIX SAT lls (which do not have a writing component) and scored 710+ on all of them, including on all three science tests for which he did not even take the AP classes. He took all of those SAT IIs just in case he ran into uneducated Admissions Officers who believed, as many here do, that his lower-than-top-school-standards GPA was in any way reflective of his knowledge or ability to perform at the highest levels academically. Fortunately, I donât believe that was the case. But please, CCers, donât make ignorant and rude comments about something you know absolutely nothing about regarding a group of students for whom you are too closed minded to attempt to understand. Gifted LD students spend a whole lot more time on homework and projects than non-LD students, have to deal with the stress of teachers who discriminate against them in both class and ECâs, and have to put up with the constant stream of people who tell them all throughout their educational experience that they âcanâtâ do things that other, far less knowledgeable students are both encouraged and rewarded for doing. Discrimination is ugly. Read, learn and understand before you write, please. Thanks.</p>
<p>happykidsmom,</p>
<p>Weâre in California and NM cutoff is really high. If 213 would make NM here, Iâd be so happy, but Iâm sure my 2015er wonât make it to 223, the cutoff for Ca. this year.</p>
<p>Iâm very impressed by your sonâs accomplishment. Frankly, with my sonâs myriad of health issues (he has plenty more), Iâm not sure heâll make it to college. Having disabilities can be discouraging at timesâŠAccommodations donât really address the needs but they are something, I guess.</p>
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One of the problems is that the âplaying fieldâ is not level to begin with, in the sense that we seem to want âlevelâ to mean âeveryone gets the sameâ. If your S can score a 4 on the Chem AP without taking the class, heâs not on the same âplaying fieldâ as the student who had to struggle all year. Does the student who struggled also have a âdisabilityâ? Shouldnât he be given extra time because heâs not as âsmartâ as your S? Who has the disadvantage? It all depends on where you set the bar.</p>
<p>As a professor, I have my personal position on LD accommodations, but I donât have enough students using them to concern myself with whether or not they are âfair.â</p>
<p>I am wondering about accommodations given to kids for things that arenât physical disabilities that require the test to be modified ( in whatever way) to make it accessible for them. Before people get madâŠI have a son with a learning disability (and it is very real). I am in no way saying there are not legitimate disabilities out there.</p>
<p>The problem I have seen as a mom, is that through special ed, my son was given accommodations instead of strategies to help him. His boss will never give him accommodations. He is in the 12 th grade and the only strategies be has been given is help organizing his notebook ( and organization is NOT his problem). The main strategy that has been most effective is to study harder and longer than everyone else(instituted by mom and dad).itâs not âfairâ but is does produce results.</p>
<p>Iâm just playing the devils advocate here but do any other parents feel that âaccommodationsâ let Special Ed teachers off the hook?</p>
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<p>I donât believe that theyâre gaming the system. The system says they need a doctor to say they need more time, they get a doctor to say they need more time, they get more time. The system is being used as intended. I believe, rather, that the system is simply broken. </p>
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<p>Youâre going to throw accusations at this hypothetical group of people? So everyone who disagrees with allocating different amounts of time for different students to take a âstandardizedâ test has some sinister motive for self-profit? Please elaborate. </p>
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<p>Nope, if the AP test intended to measure someoneâs mastery of the material, everyone should be allowed enough time to show their mastery of the material. However, the AP test doesnât (as far as I can tell) intend to measure mastery of the material. It intends (as far as I can tell) to measure how much an individual can show they know about the subject in a given amount of time in a structure thatâs mostly objective and easy to score. Given that thatâs the intention, no, your sonâs âdisabilityâ shouldnât be a factor. </p>
<p>Now, letâs suppose that the intention of the AP test was to measure a studentâs mastery of the material. Why should anyone receive less time than anyone else? If more time doesnât help anyone without a learning disability, then why not hold the test length (as in the number/type of questions) constant and up the amount of time for the test to the same amount that those with learning disabilities have. That way the people with learning disabilities have enough time, and we cover everyone who maybe has a learning disability but has never gotten diagnosed. This should be the most fair option. </p>
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<p>I think this may better explain my position than I did.</p>
<p>My software engineering team always wish to have extra time to complete the projects. But my son would not want to sit 5 hours for the SAT test. :)</p>
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<p>Itâs been a while but I know I felt very rushed during the ACT. Even the math section, which is my strength. And I know for a fact I could have done far better on reading and science if they doubled my time. Plenty of tests in college I know I could have done better if I had more time.</p>
<p>sbjdorioâI really do feel for you and your son. It is heartbreaking for parents to watch their kids suffer. There really is something to, âWhat doesnât kill us, makes us strongerâ, but not dying from it doesnât always make it feel like a blessing. 
Indeed, my son was lucky to live in a state with a historically low qualifying score. In the end, making NMF didnât make much of a difference in any way for him, though had he chosen to go to UA or another school that awards NMFs substantial scholarship money, it would have been crucial. I know SO many students who are currently attending top universities or received full-rides to school and were not NMFs, so for most students, itâs not a deal-breaker. Itâs just nice to have, even though it takes on huge emotional importance for many this time of year. DS2 would not be NMF even if he hit the qualifying score (has more than 2 Câs on his transcript), but he wants to do a couple of practice tests, anyway, which is what brought me here in the middle of the night last night. If a kid is asking to do practice tests then, by golly, I figured Iâd better find some! 
I hope that your son will find the strength and support to make his dreams a reality, no matter the path he has to forge to get there. :)</p>
<p>Thatâs a good saying, happykidsmom. I do think my son is stronger, in many ways, than kids that havenât dealt with his health issues. In tangible ways, he is absolutely stoic when it comes to pain, whereas my oldest son is just a plain olâ wimp! LOL </p>
<p>I donât understand some of the comments. If someone was blind, would people be expecting that person to read the SAT the way a sighted person does? Really? If someone didnât have limbs, would they expect them to hold a pencil and write the way most people do?</p>
<p>Just because disabilities are invisible, it doesnât make them less of a challenge.</p>
<p>I do know students with diabetes who have not asked for accommodations. But I also know of some diabetics who have had severe lows and people thought they were drunk. I have encouraged my son to let his professors be aware of his diabetes.</p>
<p>As far as his vision disability, I will encourage him, should the surgery not help, to seek accommodations or at least let the professors know. </p>
<p>Re. NM: happykidsmom, my oldest son won a NM corporate scholarship and that made all the difference in the world for him to be able to attend his school of choice. (Um, not that my 2015er would win the corporate scholarship; my oldest was a way out there achiever) So, I guess I see tremendous benefit to the NM scholarship.</p>
<p>But, I am sure my son will work it out somehow. The local CC is a good starting place while heâs in high school.</p>
<p>I did read all of the responses to my middle-of-the-night rant and agreed with, or at least understood the thinking, of most. I donât have time to answer all individually, but will give my two-cents-worth on a few of the points that stood out for me. </p>
<p>And, before I go further, I should clarify that while there are myriad LDs requiring various types of accommodations, DSs Processing LD is Dysgraphia, which affects his ability to write by hand and to process information between his head and his hand. It is as if there is little communication at all between his brain and his hand/fingers if he is writing by hand. He is not a strong keyboarder, despite years of practice and OT, but his output is considerably improved with the use of a keyboard (interestingly, the part of the brain that controls handwriting is on one side, and keyboarding is on the other, thus the differing levels of competency). His handwriting skills have shown a rapid improvement in the past two years, though he still cannot take notes in class (canât listen and write at the same time), transcribe from a book (canât read and write at the same time), etc. These skills are NOT skills that will need to be accommodated in the workplace in any of the fields of work he is considering, as he would have use of both a computer and/or assistants who could scribe what he said. So, snide, ignorant comments like coolweatherâs above are neither helpful nor pertinent in real-world, non-academic settings for students with a range of LDâs.</p>
<p>There is still SO much misinformation, and a lack of good information, out there for gifted LD students and their parents, as well as for educators. I am seriously considering writing a book specifically geared toward high-performing LD students who are stymied from the time they hit kindergarten, mis"diagnosed" by teachers and parents, are forced to recreate the wheel every year (and, in reality, every day), etc. Because of my familiarity with education (parents were a college prof/child psych and a high school special ed teacher), high level officials in DC, education law (self-taught with the help of attorneys at the DOE OCR), etc., I was pretty much able to bull-doze a path for my older son that simply is not available to 99% of gifted LD students. It was also more or less a full-time job. DS1 was âthe perfect stormâ student who most gifted teachers resented having in their classrooms, not because he was a behavior problem, but because they didnât want to have to accommodate him, though his accommodations were not onerous. I think they simply did not want to set a precedent for or encourage other gifted LD students to take classes closer to their appropriate academic level if it meant that they had to accommodate the students.</p>
<p>There is a fairly silent culture among gifted ed teachers that says, "If I do the extra work to get certified for gifted ed, I wonât have to work with âproblem childrenâ. Somewhere along the way, LD kids who need accommodations have been lumped into the âproblem childrenâ category, and many gifted teachers simply donât want to have to deal with them. So, they attempt (usually successfully) to force them out of their classrooms with bad subjective grades, lack of accommodation and, sometimes, outright mistreatment and abuse. DS1 was particularly problematic for teachers who attempted to force him out on the basis of âhe canât do the workâ or âhe canât keep up with the classâ because he was strong in every subject area, across the board, and proved his proficiencies early on through Neuropsych diagnostics in 2nd grade, gifted programs requiring him to take the SAT in 6th grade (scored 2030), etc. In addition, he went away to advanced summer camps where he was accommodated without questions and excelled far beyond what he accomplished in his school work. </p>
<p>The reports we received from top summer programs further bolstered our concerns that the lack of cooperation we got from teachers at school was unfairly holding him back academically and, most probably, fit the government definition of discrimination (Later, this was proven to be the case, though I was mostly unfamiliar, as most parents of LD students are, with 504/ADA law until my son was in high schoolâ7+ years after his diagnosis). </p>
<p>I wonât bore with all of the detail, but it was a daily fight all the way through high school just to keep DS1 in honors/AP/IB classes where he clearly belonged. DS basically started using AP and SAT II tests to prove the discrimination he met in the classroom. A parent without the resources and connections I hadâespecially a parent with a full-time job, which I did not haveâsimply could not have found the time or energy to do what DS and I did. We devoted all that we could to the fight (and it was a fightâevery step of the way) because, as the administration admitted, DS was the most clearly-definable, easily quantified LD student they had seen. We knew early on that DS would be OK, no matter what happened. He had a resume full of state and national awards in almost every subject area before he hit high school. We took risks. We experimented. We prodded and pushed because we knew (and the school district was in agreement) that DS was as a clear a case as they might ever find for flushing out classroom discrimination in his school. What we uncovered over the next four years was an eye-opener for everyone and set precedents for future gifted LD students whose profiles might be easier for teachers to dismiss as âincapableâ than DSâs.</p>
<p>Most gifted LD students are more gifted in one or two areas than others. DS had no weak areas except hand written work. If hand written work was involved, his scores/grades were lower. If it was not involved, he scored in the 98-99th Percentile in every areaâwith or without the benefit of classroom instruction, in many cases. While not a perfect science, if DS was properly accommodated in class, he made As. If he wasnât, he didnât. It was pretty simple. His accommodations were as follows: Extra time on all standardized and handwritten tests (he did not require extra time for multiple choice tests). Reduced problem workload in math and science (if the class was assigned 20 problems to work by hand, he had to do 1/4 or 5. If he got them all right, he didnât have to do 5 more. Over 90% of the time, he did them all correctly. He scored 5 on both AP Calcs and 800 M on SAT). Extra time to produce any lengthy handwritten work (over a page), and essays over 500 words at teacher discretion. Thatâs pretty much it. It took him 2-3 times the amount of time to produce handwritten work than it took other students, but what he produced with accommodations was excellent. What he produced without accommodations bore no resemblance to his confirmed level of knowledge or fluency.</p>
<p>Some here have asked, âWhy doesnât everyone who has trouble completing work on time get accommodations?â The answer is simple. They should be tested, early and often. It is estimated that over 20% of gifted students have a verifiable LD. While there are most definitely abuses in the system (doctor shopping for an LD diagnosis in order to get extended time on ACT/SAT/AP), there are also many, many students who are labelled as lazy, disinterested, obstinate, etc. who, in fact are suffering every day with an easily accommodated disability. The fact is that, just because hand-written work is easier for the teachers and cheaper for the schools, the ability to write oneâs thoughts by hand in no way predicts either their ability to achieve academically or be successful in the workplace. Yet, over 95% of all school work in schools is required to be written by hand. </p>
<p>My sons and thousands of other students with similar disabilities can dance circles around most of their classmates academically when they are allowed to communicate verbally. But this is inconvenient for their teachers. Well, Too. Bad. Undiagnosed disabilities and lack of accommodation for them are plagues on our educational system that result in highly intelligent and otherwise motivated students dropping out of school, being erroneously deemed âslowâ or relegated to special ed or standard classes where they are bored out of their skulls, and being locked out of the opportunities afforded other students who are less qualified and less motivated but who can simply communicate in a particular way more efficiently than an otherwise superiorly qualified LD student. Stephen Hawking, anyone? </p>
<p>I really hope that, with time and more information, more students WILL receive accommodations for LDs that are causing them to be unfairly discriminated against in academia. I also hope that there will be some sort of crackdown on the students and parents who really ARE gaming the system and applying for accommodations for non-existent LDs. They are a disgrace and are making life Hell for those who need and deserve assistance.</p>
<p>Limewine, you brought up so many interesting and pertinent points that I wanted to respond, but I feel like we are hijacking the OPs thread, so Iâll keep this brief. </p>
<p>Neither of my kids have ever been in Special Ed, and I am unsure what your sonâs level of academic ability is, the knowledge of which might completely change my response. However, what it sounds like to me is that your son may possibly have a poorly derived and written 504/IEP. If the 504/IEP are written to fully address and accommodate his disabilities, the teachers probably arenât in compliance. Compliance issues are SERIOUS business. If your son is not receiving accommodations afforded him by federal law, your school administrators and school district 504 coordinator would want to know that. Thatâs a federal lawsuit waiting to happen. As for teaching them strategies, I found that mostly came/comes from home, in our case (which is admittedly different from yours). When I was concerned my kids were too dependent, I packed their little bags, hugged them, kissed their cheeks and waved goodbye as they flew off to fend for themselves at academic summer camps. I started early, in 6th grade. It almost killed me. And they would come back after two weeks having worn 8 of the 40 clothing items I sent for them. I would unpack their toothbrush and they would say, âOH! THATâS where that was!â It was horrifying at first. But, slowly, they learned it was sink or swim in the real world. They learned that their accommodations were pretty much the only gravitas they should expect. Teachers who welcomed them with open arms were a gift, not a given. I would scribe for them (with the teacherâs permission), but I wouldnât give them a single word (DS2 is actually a very talented writer/poet, despite his inability to write by hand). I simply think that schools can only provide so much hand-holding for LD students. Most of the âindependenceâ lessons, I think, have to come from home. :)</p>
<p>I have empathy for many of the arguments here. One of my kids was determined to be âtwice giftedâ (great verbal ability, very low scores on processing speed tests). But the diagnosis was late in hs, after PSAT⊠220/NMSF. Organization skills were pitiful once workload ramped up in hs, but this kid was a test whiz. So I have mixed feelings on this subject. </p>
<p>I definitely think disabilities that hinder ability to handle paper test or input answers should qualify for more time. Still not sure about issues such as slow reading (which could hinder college success in some majors). </p>
<p>My own SAT scores were very good but not stellar. I didnât always finish the test sections. I assumed that most students did not get to the end. My brighter friends who finished each section and scored better did deserve higher scores. Thatâs how testing works. Sure, you can argue about unfairness of test scores vs college worthiness⊠but that argument is broader than just LD students. There are lots of brilliant students that donât test well for a variety of non-LD reasons. </p>
<p>Iâm not trying to upset the parents diligently seeking accommodations (they understand their kid and the situation better than I do.) Just adding my viewpoint.</p>
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<p>I think the opposing position has been clearly stated. The test is meant to measure processing speed, so they donât feel it is fair to give some people more time. Other than the âDâ label, what is the difference between people who may have an identifiable learning disability and those who just have less processing speed than others? Why would you compensate for one and not the other?</p>
<p>In the case of blindness and not having limbs, clearly that person is being impeded by something that the test is not meant to measure. In that case, it is not their cognitive processing speed which is slowing them down.</p>
<p>I think Vladenschuttleâs proposal to increase everyoneâs time is reasonable.</p>