<p>You hit the nail on the head, but I don't think you intended to.</p>
<p>When does mismarking bubbles become abnormal? one mistake? two? twenty?</p>
<p>When does reading some words backward become abnormal? a few? many? all of them?</p>
<p>IMHO, the problem with the problems you described is that these behaviors are on a continuum, as are most of the behaviors that get counted for LD/ADD diagnoses. And I've seen little of substance that describes objective standards about when a behavior crosses from being normal to abnormal.</p>
<p>And THAT is a big part of my frustration with this stuff.</p>
<p>My two sons tests 4 points apart on an individual school-administered IQ test.</p>
<p>Is there a reason why one has breezed through every single subject with no grade less than an A, 98%ile on achievement tests, etc.; while the other one scores in 98%ile in some subjects and barely average in others? I suppose he's lazy and unmotivated, right? He wasn't failing any subjects, so why should he need accommodations? These kids are masked by average (B-) grades. They should be encouraged and given support to attend the college that best supports the level of their strengths, not their weaknesses, whether that turns out to be a lower tiered school or a top twenty LAC. Unless you're a parent of one of these kids, I don't think you can understand the heartache involved here.</p>
<p>Btw, he did not ask for extended time on the SAT (time is not the problem for him), but he has many friends who did (this was several years ago) and were granted extra time. They are all doing well at their respective colleges.</p>
<p>Did you ever stop to think that the problem with your kids may be the IQ test? What relevance does an IQ test, especially a single score test, have to performance in school, and especially performance in individual subjects within school? </p>
<p>You may be aware that controversy has raged for years regarding what an IQ test really measures, other than performance on IQ tests.</p>
<p>epiphany wrote: "The reason that the CB does not report accommodation to colleges is simply that the accommodation is irrelevant. What accommodation does is to allow that student to perform only to the best of his ability, not beyond that ability."</p>
<p>But ALL the other non "disabled" students are also ealing with time limitations that may impact their ability to perform "to the best of their ability". The reasons colleges attach so much weight to "standardized tests" is because they are "standardized" - Oh, except for the students with accommodations. </p>
<p>I think most people would be find with accommodations IS the test results were flagged to indicate those who had such accommodations. Then a college could decide what the were actually dealing with. Ah, but that is the point of the "non-flagging" - so no one will ever know. </p>
<p>Let me ask the OP - if your child was granted the accommodations you request and the results were flagged and the accommodation information transmitted to the college along with the results, would that satisfy you?</p>
<p>I have one of these kids. Although she got extended time, which raised her CR grade (what she needed) she will not be applying to colleges that are far over her ability level. Reading speed has been a problem for years. As much as I'd like to see her go to a higher level school, I don't want her to drown either. What good is getting into a place where she can't compete? Her CR score is more 'normal' now than it was before extended time. Her other scores are the same as before.</p>
<p>I stated a page or so ago that I am not quibbling with whether or not learning disabilities exist. I know for a fact they do, and I am a big proponent in offering children the appropriate help for them to maximize their own potential. I am not in the camp of doubting Thomases on the subject of the validity of LDs (I do think ADD is overdiagnosed, but that isn't germane to this conversation).</p>
<p>However, if children receive special services or accommodations, which absolutely DO affect their scores, the colleges should be alerted.</p>
<p>Anyone who is opposed to this action has another agenda. If the disability is real, there should be no shame and no reason to hide the fact that said student had accommodations.</p>
<p>I would have no trouble whatsoever with disabled students receiving accommodations, if the colleges were alerted to this fact. Of course, the law won't allow this disclosure, so the point is moot.</p>
<p>sly_vt wrote: "My daughter qualified for accommodations. I'll give an example of her dyslexia: when looking at a multiple choice problem, she may correctly conclude that the answer is "a". But when she goes to fill in the bubble, her mind messes with the shape of the letters, and she may incorrectly fill in the "c". One of her accommodations in school was that she mark up the original test instead of use an answer sheet, because she would write the wrong letter on an answer sheet even though she knew the correct answer.</p>
<p>In math, she reverses and miscopies numbers. In a long math problem, she gets every step correct but in one line may have written 48 instead of 84, which results in the wrong answer."</p>
<p>Probably, every person taking the SAT would do better if allowed to circle their answer rather than use an answer key. It would certainly be faster giving the students more time. More importantly, many many students have a story about messing up an answer sheet - forgetting to skip a line for a skippped question, answering on the same line twice or skipping a line and all the following questions being "off", etc. </p>
<p>What kind of accommodation "makes up for" reversing numbers? And, doesn't that follow through with difficulty in all of the classes where numbers are important? Shouldn't a college know about this and put it into the decision package - whether their professors have the time, temperament, willingness to work with this student?</p>
<p>sly_vt continued: "So tell me, eDad, is my daughter below average and so not college worthy because she copies the wrong answer down and so might score lower on the SAT -- even though she knows the right answer?"</p>
<p>Well, I guess that would depend on her career selection. I certainly wouldn't admit someone with this profile to the pharmacy program, an accounting program, or an engineering program - quite frankly the liability is too high!</p>
<p>xiggi wrote: "The only solution is to stop this non-flagging nonsense and to revert to a system where schools see the results clearly and ... completely."</p>
<p>The world of academics is full of dyslexic people. Friz Lipmann, one of the true giant of twenty century biochemistry could never say the word "glucose" unless the word is in front of him. He has a bunch of index cards with him when he was giving his Nobel Lecture! </p>
<p>Flagging accomodation should be done. However, Adcom needs to be better educated on dyslesia</p>
<p>Looks like post #50 is a good answer to post 48. I'm sure biochemistry has lots of computation!
Agree,too, that the world of academia has lots of dyslexics.</p>
<p>The accommodation is extra time, so she can double-check her work and catch her errors. When given that extra time, she catches her reversals. I agree with the person who said that if you don't have one of these kids, it's hard to be sympathetic. I didn't get it until she was diagnosed, and I got it even more the two years I spent teaching.</p>
<p>She has no intention of studying accounting, pharmacy or engineering, so you have nothing to worry about.</p>
<p>The college she was accepted to knew her issues because she wrote about them in her essay and her guidance counselor addressed them in his write-up. As I said in my first post, I saw no purpose in ignoring or hiding this issue. Neither did she.</p>
<p>And my understanding of the disabilities act is that colleges need to find "the time, temperament, willingness" to work with a student with learning disabilities. A lawyer could answer this -- can a college deny a student admission on the basis of a learning disability?</p>
<p>I would play golf really well if only I did not make mistakes, if I had better teachers/coaches, if I concentrated more on the game, if I had more time to practice. I should get a handicap to make up for my limitations. I should be allowed to play in the major tournaments.</p>
<p>Edad, Your golf analogy just shows that many people need to be better informed on the nature and limitation of dyslesia. A better example may be a potential Tiger Wood who may be saddled with a bad hip that may not let him walk the course easily. Don't they let you have a golf cart for that? </p>
<p>It would have been a great loss to humanity if people like Friz Lipmann did not have the opportunity to practice biochemistry.</p>
<p>
[quote]
It must have looked like I was studying all the time, and I guess I always was. I studied in bed in the morning while my mother got me dressed, I studied before dinner, and I studied in bed at night until I couldn't stay awake any longer.</p>
<p>The problem was it took me so much longer than everyone else to do an assignment. Since I couldn't move my arms or use my hands, if I had to write an essay I had to dictate it to someone else. If I had math problems to do, I would have to figure them out in my head and then tell someone what to write down.
<p>
[quote]
Brooke Ellison (born 1978) is the first quadriplegic to graduate from Harvard University. In 2000, she was selected by her fellow students to speak at the University's commencement ceremonies.</p>
<p>Ellison was struck by a car in 1990 at age 11, while crossing a street on her first day of junior high school, leaving her paralyzed from the neck down and ventilator-dependent. Brooke and her mother, Jean Ellison, live with their family in Stony Brook, New York.</p>
<p>Ellison graduated from Ward Melville High School in 1996 with high honors, and was accepted by Harvard. She graduated magna cum laude from Harvard with a bachelor of science in cognitive neuroscience in 2000, and a masters degree in public policy from Harvard's Kennedy School of Government in 2004. Ellison is currently a doctoral candidate in political psychology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.
<p>sly_vt wrote: "The accommodation is extra time, so she can double-check her work and catch her errors."</p>
<p>But, sv, almost EVERYONE would do better if they had extra time to double-check his/her work. Thats one of the problems with these accommodations - standardized tests are no longer "standard". </p>
<p>sly_vt wrote: "A lawyer could answer this -- can a college deny a student admission on the basis of a learning disability?" </p>
<p>Probably not - and we're not talking about your daughter - because the colleges were aware of her problems. But, would a parent really want their child admitted to a college where the professors did not have the time or interest to accommodate such? Wouldn't most parents in this situation like to know if their child's choice offered support for his/her disability?</p>
<p>In his freshman year, my S had a midterm. On one question, he misread the directions, so answered all wrong. The prof called S into his office and explained: Based on his previous work, the prof knew that the wrong answer came from misreading the question rather than not understanding it or not knowing the answer. He gave my S another chance to prove his knowledge by answering another set of questions that were not on the test. My S had not even asked for the second chance! Was it fair? The prof must have thought it was. He wasn't out to play gotcha and find reasons to mark students down. He wanted to see what they knew.</p>
<p>I believe studies have generally shown that the difference in test results for "normal" students if they were given more time has been insignificant compared to the difference in results for LD students with and without accommodations (certainly less significant than the increase in scores for normal students who take it more than once. Perhaps we should also not allow students to take the test multiple times? Or study for the tests? Arguably either of these should not be done if these tests were true measures of intelligence. Which they are not).</p>
<p>I think you still don't get it. These are differently abled people who we MUST learn to educate or we will lose way too much brilliance. Sure--not everyone needs to go to college. Trade schools can be great--apprenticeships can be great. Every LD opr ADD person is not necessarily brilliant. But if we don't figure out how to help them reach their potential, we are wasting a great opportunity and sometimes paying a huge cost in correctional systems, etc.</p>