Were you successful in getting additional time on SAT for ADHD?

Parents Forum Learning Differences and Challenges - LD, ADHD
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<p>To make a long story short, my daughter was denied her request for additional time for the SAT. Although diagnosed with ADHD since 1st grade, with 504 accommodations (including extended time), she was recently re-tested by the school psychologist who indicated that additional time would be of no help to her...so of course, the College Board denied the request. As a junior, she has a 3.9 GPA but failed to complete 35 questions on the SAT....so needless to say her score was really low!!</p>

<p>At this point she is considering test optional colleges but we were wondering if anyone has any suggestions on how we could get the College Board to re-consider--what would we need to show--what documentation, what testing?</p>

<p>Any help would be appreciated-Thanks</p>

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<p>Oh come on…anybody… HELP!!</p>

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<p>I wish someone did reply. I have the same situation with my D but she gets no accomodations at her high school and will get nothing for the SATs. The only benefit I have is that we are Jewish so I can request she take the test on a Sunday which usually means a handful of kids in the room. I am hoping a quieter environment will help. My D is only a Freshman so I have time to worry. I heard that most kids are not getting extra time that should be. Sorry!</p>

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<p>My son was given extra time. He has add and has had a 504 plan in place since last school year. His testing by a specialist showed a IQ of 150 but processing speed of only 88, which is below average. His specialist documented in the evaluation that he should receive extended time.</p>

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<p>Both D1 and D2 were permitted extra time based on the full psycho-social eval by psychologist (PhD). Each is ADD-inattentive and had a 504 plan; I provided the report to the school, the school completed the necessary forms and forwarded them to the College Board. </p>

<p>Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about appealing an adverse decision. Perhaps there was no disparity (or insuffic disparity) in your D’s sub-tests.</p>

<p>FYI, I don’t think you need to be Jewish to sit for the Sunday exam (maybe a good choice if distractability is an issue).</p>

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<p>Oh dear. Been there, done that. </p>

<p>I think that the central problem here is the testing report from the school psychologist stating that extended time wouldn’t help. How did this report make its way to the College Board? Psych info on a student can’t legally be released without parental consent. So there might be a bigger issue here that needs to be addressed. </p>

<p>The thing is, the CB has the report and now you need to mount an appeal. If you will do a search on this board, you will find parents and students who have appealed – some successfully and some not – over the past few years. We appealed successfully for our kid, but it was an arduous process. Shawbridge also appealed successfully for one of his children, and has excellent suggestions.</p>

<p>If your child has a 504 and has been receiving accommodations in high school, on what basis did the psychologist state that accommodations would not help? Are the high school accommodations granted through the 504 being revoked too? If the child has the same diagnosis as before and has used accommodations successfully up to this point, it is difficult to understand the psychologist’s rationale.</p>

<p>It is hard enough to get appropriate accommodations from the CB even with the full support of the testing psychologist; I suspect that you are going to have to retest asap. You might want to show the psychologist you select the test results from the battery used by the school psychologist before you proceed, and make sure you are using a psychologist who has some familiarity with the CB appeals procedure. </p>

<p>Make it clear that you don’t expect the psychologist to help mount an appeal should he agree that accommodations are inappropriate, but that you need someone who is willing to move into an advocacy role and actually interact with the CB and address their specific concerns if he feels that your D should have the same accommodations on the SAT as she receives in school. This might also entail tearing apart the first psychologist’s report.</p>

<p>If the new psychologist feels that the first psychologist blew it (and if this is the case, we can hope that the school psychologist was perhaps an intern, or underqualified, or wrote a report that does not justify the denial of accommodations after a decade of receiving accommodations, or produced a report that is just not up to the standard expected of professionals in the field), he is going to have to be willing to not only write up a strong report that gives very concrete, clear reasons that your D needs the accommodations, linking her specific deficits or issues to the specific accommodations she needs and explaining why she needs them in excruciating detail, but, in our experience, he is going to have to be prepared to summarize again and again if the CB doesn’t get it.</p>

<p>There is another possible way to go here. If the new psychologist thinks your D needs accommodations, consider applying for accommodations on the ACT. If psychologist #2 feels that psychologist #1’s report is flawed, there is no reason you would even need to send psychologist #1’s report to the ACT. You have a long-standing 504 with accommodations that have been in place for years. You will have psychologist #2’s supportive report explaining why the accommodations are needed. You will not be in the same category as people who decide 15 minutes before the SAT’s/ACT’s with a kid who has never had accommodations that, surprise, the kid has an LD and needs extended time; your kid has had a diagnosis and accommodations for more than a decade. There is a real possibility that with just the history of the 504 and the second psychologist’s report, ACT accommodations will be granted. </p>

<p>Finally, if the school psychologist’s report was sent without your consent, there are legal ramifications out the wazoo. You might want to consider reporting him to the appropriate State licensing board with a formal complaint, or even contact a lawyer if you’re so inclined. </p>

<p>I remember the anxiety and the concerns and the search for test-optional schools that could meet my kid’s academic needs before the appeal was successful quite vividly. Please just take a deep breath and go into advocacy mode. You do have some options here. Good luck!</p>

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<p>One more thing: The appeals process can take months. If you’re going to go for it, start right away.</p>

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<p>SockherMom, I’m pretty sure I’ve written about my experiences at some length in earlier posts (maybe use the Google Search for shawbridge and dyslexia or shawbridge and ADHD). But I appealed to the CB with my dyslexic son for the SATs. It took a long time (about a year) but in the end, we got exactly what we had hoped for (double time, spread over two days with long tests, and breaks as needed). The ACT folks just said OK. But, we gathered that the CB staff are skeptical of people we paid (e.g., neuropsychologist). We gathered lots of letters from ShawSon’s teachers and others who had watched him need extra time.</p>

<p>For ShawD, whose ADHD was diagnosed late, in part because she’d had some earlier debilitating vision problems that had masked the ADHD (although I think the neuropsychologist missed evidence in the data), we negotiated with the ACT folks as ShawD preferred that test. At the school’s suggestion, we had hired a new neuropsychologist who concluded that she had ADHD and recommended extra time. The CB granted the extension but the ACT folks denied on the grounds that it was so recent (sophomore year) and that there might not be a disability and that it might not be so bad and a bit of weirdo logic (they weren’t trying to optimize her score but just to level the playing field) or that there was no evidence that the impairment prevented her from demonstrating her knowledge in a structured testing environment and whether the disability substantially limited a major life activity. We went back to old grades from ShawD’s private middle school and quoted lots of teachers comments about if she could only focus, etc. It turns out that the teachers at that school, which is a sensational place, chose on their own to give her extra time. We paid the neuropsychologist to do some new tests and she also analyzed the data from two years of PSATs. In the first year, with no accommodation, she made mistakes on easy problems as well as hard ones, whereas the following year, with accommodations, she made no mistakes on easy problems. This was consistent with all of the testing. We again had teachers write about their experiences with her. The ACT folks gave her 50% extra time, as we had requested.</p>

<p>In both cases, I wrote an essay explaining my observations as a parent, whose comments we’d solicited and why, dealt explicitly with each of the arguments that they had raised (e.g., not substantially limited in a major life activity) and then a synthesis with an argument about why they should grant our request. </p>

<p>My general feeling is that both places and especially the CB are inclined to deny on the first pass or offer less than asked because they are concerned, correctly, that there are lots of upper middle-class parents trying to buy psychologists reports to get extra time to advantage kids who don’t need accommodations. So, that necessitates the appeals process. But, it does take a long time. Incidentally, I found that talking directly with the psychologist at the CB was very helpful – the individual was intelligent and responsive. I found the person at the ACT, who didn’t have a PhD, was much more dismissive and curt. I hope my experience helps.</p>

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<p>We found CB to be no problem (request for extra time granted w/o question), but got a flat denial from ACT. At D’s school, only kids with physical issues (including vision) reported receiving extra time on the ACT.</p>

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<p>I am going through the same thing. My Son has been at a LD school since 7th grade. I had him reevaluated this past summer as per the schools request, spent 3K, stating his Lap top needs, as his writing is that of a 2nd grade, his ADHD., medications, his impulsive behavior etc…the Dr…gave specific diagnosis… etc to be denied from SAT for ANY accomodations…and now the school is saying that they can’t get involved. I have tried appealing this but the Dr that did the pscho ed wont take our calls. His scores were as low as 16th percentile in certain areas…I feel like they never read the report…I am desperate for any help!</p>

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<p>I was the one who submitted the Psychologist’s evaluation. One of the tests administer was the Nelson Denny reading test, timed and un-timed–she actually did better on the timed than the un-time and based upon those results it was indicated that additional time would not help her. the problem is, it is not reading but the math portion where she has the problem. With the Wechsler Intelligence Scale test it indicated that her Processing Speed, Symbol Search and Coding all to be “Low Average” but the psychologist stated she appeared to be making an effort to work slow and careful and when the took the Nelson test next, “her automatic response style” was present reflecting in “average scores”. The only thing she said that was of any significance was that she had “weakness when a complex spatial motoric response is required.” Huh?</p>

<p>Basically, I think the psychologist saw she had all A’s (and of course put that on the evaluation) and thinks we are full of s**t–I just want her to go sit next to her in a movie theater for 2 hours, when she starts bouncing off the walls after 15 minutes–maybe she will see, my kids has major ADHD–she just is really smart and can fake it!!</p>

<p>She is going to try the ACT in April and if she doesn’t do well, she will look at SAT optional colleges. </p>

<p>I guess we are just giving up!!</p>

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<p>So many frustrating scenarios.</p>

<p>Rather than (or in addition to) extended time, has anyone tried to get accommodations for more frequent breaks? Do you know how hard it is to get that accomodation? (And how does that work regarding time - do they get extended time also because the breaks take them out of the room so they need more time to finish? Or does extended time also have to be qualified for, in which case if they don’t qualify for that, they can’t take breaks either or they won’t have enough time in the seat to finish the exam even if they work fairly quickly?</p>

<p>My son absolutely cannot sit still long enough to do regular scheduled breaks. It is literally impossible for him. He would end up banging his feet or bouncing around on his chair or banging his pencil on the table, ready to explode, if he could not get up. </p>

<p>(This is the exact scenario of a state-wide test he took last year and he was thrown out of the exam room for being too distracting.) How could he ever sit through an SAT exam without being allowed to get up and go to the bathroom fairly often or something? </p>

<p>We have a full neuropsych report to indicate his severe ADHD as well as some other issues, but it seems most of the people with ADHD are asking for additional time, not frequent breaks, so I wonder how they make the decision what to offer (if anything)?</p>

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<p>Sorry SockherMom, did not mean to highjack your thread into a slightly different topic, the thread just got me thinking.</p>

<p>For your daughter, I hope you are able to get some accommodations for ACT or appeal the SAT, but if that is not successful - maybe consider a school like NYU in addition to the totally test optional schools. NYU now requires some tests, but not specific ones (such as sending only a couple of SAT II Subject tests or APs rather a full standard SAT.) </p>

<p>With subject tests, she might be able to choose the subjects that would not expose her problem with completing Math as quickly. Not sure NYU’s exact requirements but I know they made a change last year to be more accommodating in the test area. If she tried a variety of tests, she could perhaps choose the highest scores that would be most in line with her very high GPA.</p>

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<p>Thanks AParentalUnit, I will take a look at those options. She really wants to go to NYC, so maybe with SAT 2’s it could work. </p>

<p>No problem hijacking the thread, the break issue is something I never have thought about, does the SAT allow this? She has the same issues, in first grade her 504 “accomodation” was… as indicated by her teacher…to be allowed to hang upside down in her chair during reading time, poor kid could not stay in her chair and still cannot. As I mentioned earlier, going to a movie with her is impossible, I jokingly leave a seat between us because sitting next to her is the most annoying thing…lol.</p>

<p>We are confident she will find her way, she is bright and understands her limitations, if she need to go to CC first, she is OK with that…so we will just see.</p>

<p>Good luck to you too!</p>

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<p>My D did get frequent breaks, in addition to extended time, and a reader. I also asked for small group setting, but that ended up irrelevant since she was granted a reader. She did ACT last year with these accommodations. </p>

<p>This year the SAT accommodations have been approved, but she won’t take it until April. They approved double time, over multiple days,and a reader. I’m still unsure how the CB stars aligned, because I asked only for extended time (plus the reader). The SAT letter didn’t address the frequent breaks. When I called, the lady told me that w/ the double time, she could take breaks whenever she wanted, so they didn’t specifically list that.</p>

<p>OP-I am so sorry you are having to deal w/ these issues. It is difficult enough having a special needs child w/o all the extra hoop jumping. I agree w/ Shawbridge that they do this to try to weed out the fakers.</p>

<p>I thought the ACT and SAT accommodations request did not require the psych documentation if the IEP/504 had been in place for years and the accommodations were being used at school? That might have been only if there were addt’l diagnoses, and ADHD only required the testing be provided. My D is also reading LD and also has a medical disorder, so we had lots of checkboxes.</p>

<p>If you have the money and time, I’d try a different psych who is very versed in dealing with CB and ACT, and who really wants to advocate for the kids who need the accommodations. Good luck and best wishes.</p>

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<p>I would agree. It has to do with the evaluation stating extended time would not help. My daughter has extended time for her routine tests at school and was granted extended time for the SAT, no questions asked. Is there anyway they can revaulate the extended time for routine tests?</p>

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<p>In my experience, the key factors in obtaining extra time for standardized testing are the qualifications, affiliation and experience of the psychologist whom performs the testing. For example, my child was tested by a neuropsychologist (in a private practice) initially, and we received word back from SAT/ACT that timed tests had not been performed. How were we to know what tests were supposed to be done? We had to repeat tests which basically doubled the fee, and the psychologist really didn’t know what tests to do. My child was approved for extra time for the ACT, but not for the SAT, which meant NO extra time for AP exams, a real disaster. We had my child retested by a pediatric neuropsychologist linked to a major university who was listed on the CHADD website, and it made ALL of the difference in the world. Her report was 20 pages long, and extremely comprehensive. It made me cry when I read it because it so clearly documented and crystallized the academic difficulties that my kid had struggled with, having been robbed of fair treatment for so many years. My kid has a very high IQ (150), and had a low, but not failing, GPA and was NOT given accommodations because of how a minimally qualified school psychologist interpreted some educational tests performed at school. </p>

<p>Since these kids will need accommodations in college, as well as extra time for standardized testing- the TIMING of the tests, and WHAT is stated on the report and HOW it is stated is extremely important. It angers me when I hear that a school psychologist would indicate that a child does not need additional time. Did the HS psychologist also provide documentation that the student had a NORMAL processing speed or working memory??? Because if they did not, this is a serious breach of accurate representation with respect to that student. Documentation of a delay in processing speed and working memory are CRUCIAL, and the statistical difference in different areas on the IQ scale are as well. It was VERY expensive to have the initial testing, and VERY expensive to repeat the tests. However, the peace of mind gained from getting thorough testing with a comprehensive interpretation of the results is absolutely priceless. I would take out a loan and go into debt if necessary in order to obtain appropriate testing if I had it to do over again.</p>

<p>In my experience, the testing was done early in the summer between sophomore and junior years in high school for SAT/ACT requests for extra time. It takes 7 weeks on the average to get an answer. If extra time is denied, there is still time to appeal. In addition, the report can be used for college-as the information has to be within 3 years old to qualify for services. The report needs to document what services the child needs. The latest neuropsych report has 4 PAGES of recommendations, if that gives you any idea of the detail necessary to help my kid.</p>

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<p>I think we must go to the same school…we had same issue…school psychologist messed up our report, got denied, then school wouldn’t help us out, …we called college board directly and we got a nice person who saw that our child HAD been diagnosed with 504 etc…for years and years…so we resubmit it BUT with a fullly itemized cover letter, referring to specific parts of the testing…the initial denial said that our child’s scores were too high!!! i"m sorry 73% - 12% doesn’t seem high to me…so sometimes you have to help the TEST READER through…they do a zillion of these…try again…they said it would take 7 weeks for the appeal…we submitted our appeal package this past Monday and Wednesday we got the readjustment for xtra time…I was pulling my hair out…I sent all old reports IEP’s to show documentation…if you have…also, I had a private testing done who showed the LD that he has but they do cost a lot of money and aren’t guaranteed…go to the website for CB and call a rep there and have them walk you through it!! Good Luck</p>

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<p>We’re facing this issue at present for our AS-son. Despite many families in our communityr receiving SAT accommodations in the past, it seems CB’s threshhold requirements are now more vigorous. Whereas I’ve heard stories about “pediatrician notes”, “parental requests”, and “IEP submittal” being acceptable in previous years, now IEP, school psychologist’s testing, past history of accommodations, documented discrepancy between verbal IQ and processing speed are inadequate. “Gold-standard” appears to be privately procured and expensive educational testing by an established learning disabilities clinic sponsored by a university, following a specified protocol of educational tests.</p>

<p>That’s what we’re doing. Despite twelve years of educational documentation prepared by schools and well documented disconnect between IQ and processing speed, CB wants more educational testing data for “extended time” accommodation. Perhaps the $2500 private educational testing becomes the threshold for CB’s granting of extended time requests.</p>

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<p>Our initial testing (indeed all of our testing) was from the kind of expert being described here, and our S was initially turned down for the accommodation he’d been using for years based on testing and an extensive report from years (but not too many years to meet SAT criteria) before. On the appeal, some additional testing was called for but mainly, the tester had to go back through her report and explain things in very concrete detail for the SAT evaluators who just didn’t get it. If you can reach someone involved in the evaluation of your appeal, be a really good listener and tease out what it is they’re not understanding.</p>

<p>Our initial request was turned down without the SAT people giving us reasons, making it very hard to know on what basis the request had been rejected. Try as hard as you can to get them to tell you what it is they need to see and what they don’t understand.</p>

<p>We found a real bias against high performing LD students. With accommodation and dogged determination, our S was an outstanding student at a top school. The folks at SAT said that, based on his grades, they thought he could probably do average work on the SAT’s without accommodation and they didn’t see why they should accommodate someone like that. They had no basis for believing this – either in terms of predicting my S’s performance or in terms of their interpretation of the law. (And this is why we didn’t have him take any ETS tests before the accommodations were granted, because we didn’t want them to point to a 460 on, for example, a physics SAT II and go, there, that’s good enough, we don’t have to accommodate, when the kid was, in fact, an A physics student when accommodated.) I tried to explain that if he did average (which we were pretty sure, from his failing tests without accommodation, wouldn’t happen) the SAT result would show his deficits and not accurately reflect his knowledge of the material, preparation, and motivation until I was blue in the face. I actually think you have a better chance – with the same LD – if your kid is a marginal student than if he is a good student. </p>

<p>One thing we did that I think was very helpful was to download the SAT’s teacher evaluation form and give it to every teacher our kid had had for the previous 4 years, asking them to fill out the form with as much graphic detail as they could. One teacher had actually observed S with a pencil (he used a keyboard at that point) trying to copy material off the board and wrote about how this looked and how long it took. Another teacher had had the experience of giving S a couple of quizzes without additional time when he hadn’t gone through the school’s procedure for procuring extended time. He had failed both quizzes, while he had excellent understanding of the material and otherwise got A’s in the class. One science teacher was so incensed about the denial of appropriate accommodation that he appended an additional letter in which he explained, in detail, how the brain works and how S’s LD affected performance complete with detailed observations of S in class. The teacher who first spotted S’s LD and recommended testing talked about what caused her to suspect and how the testing and accommodations changed everything for him in her class. We submitted more than a dozen letters.</p>

<p>When the accommodations were finally granted on appeal, as-needed breaks were included. (I’m not sure if this is automatic with double time.) With double time, it is automatic that SAT’s are given over the course of a couple of days.</p>

<p>But be aware, with AP exams taken with double time, unless you specifically ask for it months before the exams, the test is given in one day! And, if it’s an afternoon test, your child will not be allowed to start it in the morning, but will start when everyone else does at 1:00 and then sit there until 8 or 9 at night. At least with as needed breaks, the kid can pause and eat something for dinner.</p>

<p>Our kid’s LD’s were not in the marginal range. There was close to a 90 point gap between his scores on subtests. He is now at an excellent university where he is accommodated in the same way he was in high school and, eventually, on the SAT’s, and he’s still an A student. </p>

<p>Had the ETS/CB continued to claim that they don’t have to accommodate gifted but severely LD students (unlike universities, all of which have support services and accommodate severely LD, gifted students), I was prepared to take this to court.</p>