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Testing accommodations for students with disabilities are generally recommended in packages, rather than independently. And accommodation packages have moderate to large effects on performance assessment scores for most students with disabilities and for some students without disabilities.

These findings result from a recent study by UW–Madison education professors Stephen N. Elliott, Thomas R. Kratochwill, and graduate student Brian McKevitt (2001). Their study was designed to

a. describe the nature of information on testing accommodations listed on students' Individual Education Plans (IEPs);

b. document the testing accommodations educators actually use when assessing students via performance assessment tasks; and

c. examine the effect accommodations have on the test results of students with and without disabilities.

The increase in scores for students without disabilities raises questions about the validity of the accommodations. If changes in testing procedure affect students without disabilities in the same direction and degree that they affect students with disabilities, these changes are not truly acting as accommodations.

For more information, see http://www.wcer.wisc.edu/testacc/publications.htmll.