Yes but how many diagnoses are made with such extensive testing? Mine kid was testing by a very reputable developmental pediatrician who did some, but not all, of that testing. What do you mean by “associated measures”? My experience was quite a while ago, so perhaps things have changed.
The “associated measures” are as I explained above ( measures of attention, comprehension, memory, etc). In this day and age, if a student has had their diagnosis accepted by the school and accommodations formally in place and used in the school, CB and ACT may accept it and provide a consistent accommodation (they don’t like getting chastised by the Dept of Justice, as has happened to LSAC). But especially if this is a new request, or the student isn’t formally using the accommodations in school, the questionnaire -only “diagnosis” will be unlikely to be sufficient for accommodations.
What is your evidence that any of these traits (as defined by diagnosticians) fall on a bell curve? What is the numerical measure that, you assert, falls on a bell curve for any of the traits?
OK – Here’s a different proposal. Everyone gets unlimited time. That’s right. Take as much time as you need. Anyone who wants a quiet room gets a quiet room (number of quiet rooms available per test date per site is limited). HOWEVER, anyone who stays more than time and a half is flagged; colleges will know how much time the student took to complete the test.
@“Cardinal Fang”
Anyone with life experience will tell you all those traits have a continuous, unimodal, and relatively symmetric distribution. Most teenagers are inattentive or make decisions without thinking some of the time. Some teenagers are inattentive or make decisions without thinking a lot. Others do so rarely. You can quibble about whether the exact distribution is normal, but it’s clearly a lot more similar to height than a binary outcome like measles or cancer.
The real problem is the reliance on timed standardized testing in the first place. One way or another, undue attention gets focused on improving test scores, and the more $$$ a family has to invest in that project, the higher the likelihood of achieving a high score. Which in turn renders the tests pretty much meaningless in terms of providing any sort of info about ability or achievement for scores at the upper end of the range.
But then again, if the colleges are using the scores as a way of shaping the economic profile of their incoming class in order to ensure a steady influx of full-pay students… then the disparities serve to enhance the value of that test as a tool for favoring students whose parents are able to pay for four years of college.
@roethlisburger, perhaps you don’t realize that ADHD is a lifetime condition. Teenagers may be on average more inattentive and impulsive than older adults, but, lamentably, ADHD’s inattention and impulsiveness stick around to the end of life. It’s a different mechanism.
The solution is for schools to be grade optional in addition to test optional. Since one characteristic of ADHD is “fail to finish schoolwork”, the use of grades in admissions may be viewed as inherently discriminatory against those with ADHD.
This conversation has officially jumped the shark.
It is not just about extra time on standardized tests, but in school as well. The article says that most diagnoses are legitimate but that process is subject to abuse and that
The reality is that time limits are built into most tests. The tests questions would have to be made much harder to distinguish the upper tail if there was unlimited time. And the cost would be higher. Plus the pressure would be even greater in some ways to be perfect and to check, double check and triple check the tests and sit there for hours. How would this work logistically? Kids that finish more quickly would have to wait for the kids that take double or triple time to move on to the next section? Or the sections would be all given at once? I don’t think the test security protocols would allow that.
The reality is that some kids who do really well in school don’t score as well on these tests. Sometimes because time is a factor but it could also be due to other factors.
Maybe I am wrong, but I don’t think the suggestion that the standardized tests have no time limits was serious. Besides being impractical, how then would they be “standardized”? And IRL, we do not have unlimited time to complete tasks, whether it be in college (with papers, exams, studying, etc) or at work, etc. If I have an emergency in the ER, I’d prefer that the triage team have efficient and accurate automaticity and problem-solving skills.
I think that college admissions would be best served if the upper tail on the exams was eliminated completely – not necessarily the underlying questions but the score reporting. If the top possible score on the SAT was, say, 1400 (700 each exam) and on 30 on the ACT (composite or any subscore) — then students at the highest end would top out, and colleges would have whatever info was needed to assess college readiness. (Those are top 10% scores). And it as at that upper tail level where the time limits impact most of the test-takers (with or without a qualifying disability) – so that is where extending extra time is producing a discriminatory effect against those who don’t have a qualifying diagnosis.
Are HS GCs allowed to mention on college recommendations that the student had an IEP? Or this is also a secret?
Illegal.
Just a point of clarification – an IEP and a 504 plan are two entirely different things. The NYT article was about parents essentially buying questionable diagnoses in order to qualify their higher achieving students for 504 plans, generally for more time on tests to enable them to maximize their scores.
An IEP is a plan geared to students who, by reason of their disability, are found to qualify for specialized educational intervention services – such as support from a resource teacher, modifications to the curriculum, or being placed in a special ed or resource room. The NYT article didn’t mention or suggest that any of the families profiled had sought IEP’s. Given the hoops one has to jump through in order to get and enforce an IEP, I don’t think there would be much benefit to anyone in faking or exaggerating a disability for that purpose.
There are many similarities, though also differences, between an IEP and a 504 https://www.understood.org/en/school-learning/special-services/504-plan/the-difference-between-ieps-and-504-plans
https://schoolpsychologistfiles.com/which-is-better-a-504-plan-or-an-iep/ But, an important issue, IMO, for rising college students, is that an IEP only addresses access to educational services through 12th grade, while accommodations under the 504 rehab act continue into college.