<p>Kids with social anxiety probably want to get through the lunchroom as quickly as possible.</p>
<p>I just tested someone who has an Anxiety disorder, OCD and OC personality. He obsesses and ruminates about everything, is a perfectionist, and it is heightened during timed tasks. He has routines and rituals. He has done a lot to ameliorate these issues but clearly cannot demonstrate his knowledge base under standard testing time constraints.</p>
<p>“Kids with social anxiety probably want to get through the lunchroom as quickly as possible.”</p>
<p>^ Yes, but exposure and response prevention is an evidence based treatment for anxiety disorders!</p>
<p>^Yes. Systematic approximation and desensitization with relaxation., Not implosion therapy!!!</p>
<p>Buzzkill…</p>
<p>Jym626:</p>
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<p>I don’t think anyone is suggesting that an accommodation not be made. Taking ADHD meds is very comparable to wearing glasses in this example. Nevertheless, there is a disclosure that you are using corrective lenses even if you can successfully see and from what others are posting about the ADA, there can be no disclosure about identifying non-standard conditions on a standardized test. The allotted time for the examination would play a large role in your scoring even if you have no LDs. It just seems wrong.</p>
<p>@YaleGradandDad It may seem wrong, but I truly believe that if you or your child faced such issues, you wouldn’t think it unfair. (Because this is on the internet, you may take that to be spoken in a harsh voice, but I intended for it to be very soft). Not many parents want their child to be publicly labeled as LD or otherwise disabled, because in an admissions process that is already so selective and oftentimes seems random, calling attention to anything potentially negative could greatly hurt your chances. As people have implied upthread, would fewer people use accommodations if it meant they’d be flagged? Probably. I probably wouldn’t have agreed to accommodations if that were the case. Unfortunately, I still would’ve needed them, and would’ve done fairly poorly without them, just out of stubbornness to not be outwardly labeled as disabled to colleges.</p>
<p>So yes, flagging accommodation kids would reduce the incentive for people to cheat the system, however, it would also be cheating the kids who genuinely need those accommodations.</p>
<p>Getting accommodations like performance enhancing drugs & extended time for those who don’t need it after paying for diagnosis by unscrupulous docs is teaching kids that
<p>While I recognize how sensitive this issue is, I have mixed feelings on this, depending on what the purpose of the test/exam is. In college, the primary purpose of the exams is to see whether you know the material and can do the problems (in math/science/engineering,) anyway. So giving extra time to people who don’t process things well due to dyslexia may have merit. People who write slowly due to dysgraphia have an even stronger case. Many humanities classes don’t have time-pressure exams, anyway, so it’s not really an issue there.</p>
<p>However, if the point of the exam is to measure the speed of processing information, I can the point-of-view of those who don’t believe extra time is fair, or if it is, it should be flagged on the exam. A pre-law candidate who can’t read and comprehend cases quickly will have a tough time in law school, because there is so much reading involved. And if you got a big boost on the LSAT because of extra time, your score may be misleading in terms of the ability to do well in law school (assuming there is a strong correlation in LSAT score and performance in law school, which is a whole another argument about whether schools have the right to set their own selection criteria.) </p>
<p>In general, I agree that disabilities shouldn’t have to be disclosed, but if you get extra time in a test which has as one of its primary goals the ability to process material and problem-solve quickly, then I think it’s fair to have to disclose it.</p>
<p>It’s impractical of course, but sometimes I think the best thing would be for everyone to get infinite time, since I don’t see that the speed with which you finish the SAT has that much to do with how smart you are.</p>
<p>Further, if assessing the speed of processing information is NOT one of the primary goals of a college exam or standardized test, then presumably the test is designed so that a regular person would be able to finish it in the allotted time if they knew the material. If they didn’t know the material, then extra time may not improve their score. Therefore, you could then argue that anyone who requests it should get extra time. </p>
<p>However, there are a lot of assumptions I’ve made, the primary one being that the speed of processing ability is not one of the goals of the exam (especially standardized tests, which are not as deep.)</p>
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<p>I cross-posted a similar proposal, but the SAT math has a unique problem associated with giving extra time to non-impaired individuals.</p>
<p>As you give more time, solving the problems through trial-and-error becomes feasible. For instance, the question “What is bigger: (absolute value of X) or X^2?” Mathematically inclined people would recognize the different scenarios where X = 0, between 0 and 1, and above 1. If you gave people infinite time, they may eventually arrive at the right answer by trying out numbers.</p>
<p>When I took the GRE some years ago, that is exactly what I did with the math part. For a good number of them, you could plug in a 1 and figure it out. Now, I did not ace the test, but I did score higher than my engineer husband had years before. I was amused.</p>
<p>If everyone got unlimited time, there would be a lot more perfect scores. At least part of the skill is working and reading really fast.</p>
<p>My kid could have gotten extra time accomodations on the SAT, but refused to request them. He still got a fairly high score, but probably would have come close to maxing it with the extra time. As a parent I was a little disappointed he didn’t take the advantage, but proud that he had the charachter to realize he really didn’t need extra time more than anyone else did, and it felt too much like cheating.</p>
<p>busdriver~are you saying your kid genuinely qualified for extra time, but you felt it showed character to not use them? I think the article was discussing kids faking adhd and using accommodations that they did not qualify for, that is clearly inappropriate. making the generalization that all kids who need and/or use accommodations are somehow showing poor character is not a fair statement imho.</p>
<p>Myturnnow, did I make the generalization that “all kids who need and/or use accommodations are somehow showing poor character?” Of course I didn’t, that’s a pretty big reach. In my child’s specific situation, since he felt that he did not need extra time more than any other person, he felt it would be cheating. Being given a legal advantage because you have a specific condition, and turning it down because you realize you actually shouldn’t have it, does show charachter. It doesn’t reflect on any other individuals with problems that require extra time. It is not a generalization, it is one specific situation. A valid generalization is obviously that faking a condition to get extra time is cheating.</p>
<p>With all due respect, there is no guarantee that any student will be granted accomodations when they are requested, even if they are "sure"they will get it. Nor are they guaranteed that they will be granted what they request, even if the documentation appears solid. I know of one applicant who had dysgraphia. They applied for extended time or permission to use a computer for the written (essay) portion of the test. They had documentation of the disability, the cause of the disability, etc. What accomodation was offered? A “quiet room”. :eek: By the time the appeals worked their way slowly through the process, the date of the test was upon them.</p>
<p>The flip side of that is, just because a person may qualify for an accomodation doesn’t mean they have to choose to use it. That is a personal preference. My DH had a handicapped parking pass when he broke his ankle and leg and had surgery. He qualified for it, but he was too stubborn to use it. I admit I was tempted to use it a time or two when he wasn’t in the car when I had trouble finding a parking space and had to park far away, but I did not. Not only was it wrong, but I could use the exercise!</p>
<p>Just a point of clarification: the College Board did not stop flagging accommodated test scores until October 2003. It was NOT due to ADA (which was originally passed in 1984, FYI) or its implementation.</p>
<p>The change was the result of a lawsuit by a Stanford student (originally filed in 1999) who was born without arms and was upset that his GMAT score would be flagged as non-standard testing. ETS/CB agreed to stop flagging accommodated testing as a result of the lawsuit (in a settlement agreement finally reached in 2002).</p>
<p>**It is important to note that LSAT and MCAT test scores ARE “flagged.” <a href=“CB/ETS%20does%20not%20administer,%20own,%20etc.%20these%20tests”>/b</a>. This practice has been upheld in earlier legal challenges on the premise/grounds that these tests are specifically scaled to other test takers’ performances and any ‘non-standard’ test administration is not valid in this scaling AND because LSAT and MCAT test scores are not flagged “accommodated testing due to disability,” simply “non-standard testing.” However many complain that “non-standard testing” is always interpreted by admissions people as “disability accommodations” because there it is extremely, extremely rare for any other reason for “non-standard testing.”</p>
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<p>This is almost a perfect example of what could be right and … wrong. Replacing a standardized test with a different type that might include open-ended questions should greatly students who need accommodations showing how bright they are. This would also allow schools to measure students on a different basis. There is absolutely no need to imposed a statardized test on a student that is not standard. </p>
<p>That is the good part. Extending the time on the SAT renders the test close to worthless since the relative difficulty of the test is mostly based on the time constraints built in the text. Removing the time factor makes the test as trivial as playing WWF with an anagram solver. </p>
<p>Since adequate testing is not offered, the only reasonable compromise is to err on the side of full disclosure, and that means to abandon the lack of flagging.</p>
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<p>Here’s a link to a more accurate representation of the lawsuit that triggered the changes.</p>
<p>[Disabled</a> Win Halt to Notations Of Special Arrangements on Tests - New York Times](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/08/us/disabled-win-halt-to-notations-of-special-arrangements-on-tests.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm]Disabled”>http://www.nytimes.com/2001/02/08/us/disabled-win-halt-to-notations-of-special-arrangements-on-tests.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm)</p>
<p>The settlement can be seen here: </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.dralegal.org/downloads/cases/breimhorst/settlement_agreement.pdf[/url]”>http://www.dralegal.org/downloads/cases/breimhorst/settlement_agreement.pdf</a></p>
<p>Please note that Mark Breimhorst is a graduate of the Stanford Graduate School of Business.</p>
<p>And finally a link to a story that addresses the issues debated here:
<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2006/05/flag_on_the_field.html[/url]”>http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/medical_examiner/2006/05/flag_on_the_field.html</a></p>
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<p>Well, I imagine people will vehemently disagree with me on this, but I don’t think there is any reason to give people with ADHD, dyslexia, or similar learning disorders extra time on the SAT.
Fact is, the SAT is a college aptitude test, designed to measure people’s success in college. If you can’t read fast enough or figure out problems adroitly enough on such a test, you’re going to have the same problems in college. Since colleges don’t know that the scores are not reflective of the student’s actual ability under normal circumstances, they expect the students to perform that well when they get to college. A year later, the kids at Harvard complain that they can’t keep up. I wonder why.</p>
<p>Of course, the whole issue is further compounded by people faking ADHD to get extra time or Adderall or whatever. My feeling - admittedly, based on almost no evidence - is that in most cases, parents just want an excuse for why their kid isn’t doing well, and ADHD has become the standard excuse. I realize that this doesn’t apply to everyone, but the fact that about 10% of students purport to have a disease today that didn’t exist half a century ago is, in itself, telling.</p>