Receiving accommodations for ACT

[Guest almostdone]

My son has never been in the school system so he has never had an IEP. We have extensive testing documentation from outside sources and he has been in private speech and reading therapy throughout his school years. He is now trying to take the ACT but since he does not have an IEP we are only being allowed time and a half. If he were in school the counselor told me he would have easily qualified for unlimited time with a reader. Has anyone else faced this situation? Is there a way to work with the ACT organization without an IEP? I'm being told they are a private organization and can set rules as they see fit. I keep thinking there has to be someway to help my son. Thanks for your help!

[homeschoolally]

My son has never been in the school system so he has never had an IEP. We have extensive testing documentation from outside sources and he has been in private speech and reading therapy throughout his school years. He is now trying to take the ACT but since he does not have an IEP we are only being allowed time and a half. If he were in school the counselor told me he would have easily qualified for unlimited time with a reader. Has anyone else faced this situation? Is there a way to work with the ACT organization without an IEP? I'm being told they are a private organization and can set rules as they see fit. I keep thinking there has to be someway to help my son. Thanks for your help!

 

Our experience, and our background was similar, was that we had to get a new private psychoeducational evaluation to get anything beyond time and a half. There was also the risk that we could shell out the money for it, and that the results wouldn't be persuasive enough to get the extra accommodation. The tester has to be very specific--so if you do it be careful to find someone who is either familiar with this or will work with you to write the report up the way ACT needs it. We had to go back and redo things several times because she gave too broad a diagnosis.

 

It was pricey, and looking back, if it weren't for desperately needing the audio for dyslexia, I probably would have taken the time and a half and saved the $1000 and the stress.

 

Time-wise, time and a half would have been enough for her--even with the audio tapes which were slow. Unless you get testing over several days, seems like would drag out into a long day if you used more than time and a half and fatigue might become an issue. To get testing over several days, you have to have a pretty severe learning disability, from our experience.

 

You also have to find your own ACT tester--which was tough. ACT wasn't helpful on this at all. Finding someone qualified was easy, finding someone who wanted to do it was almost impossible for us. Most can't do it while they're 'on the clock' at school, because they can't be paid by ACT and their employer for the same hours. We finally found someone but I don't think he'd be willing to do it again because he said the list of requirements was so overboard.

 

Have you tried giving him a practice test to see how he does? I do think the accommodations helped, but it was a time consuming and expensive process. I don't mean to be discouraging, it is possible---but it was a major undertaking for us. Maybe you'll hear from someone else who had a better experience! I'd be glad to help out if you have any other questions--just pm me!

Edited May 27, 2011 by homeschoolally

[Dmmetler]

One thing to check, if your student really needs multiple testing sessions-are they applying to programs that let you "Stack" scores? Many colleges will take the highest score from each area, so while it's more expensive to do it this way, one strategy that's very useful for students with fatigue issues (which are complicated by longer testing periods) is to simply focus on 1 or 2 sections each time they take the test, and pick different ones each time.

 

My neurologist did my paperwork, years ago (I had an IEP, but since this was in the days where the only high-stakes standardized testing WAS the ACT/SAT, we hadn't bothered to put it in the IEP), and I had no trouble getting it accepted. From what I've seen in college and graduate school, a neurologist often seems to hold more weight than a psychologist, even if the neurologist is using a lot of data from psychological testing.

 

In applying for accommodations, consider the medical ones, too. I have both frequent bathroom breaks and snack breaks written in for any test over 2 hours. My neurologist suggested these-not because I necessarily NEED a bathroom every hour or a snack break every 2 hours, but because those 5 minutes to put down the pencil, get a proctor, be escorted to the bathroom, use the bathroom, wash hands, and so on, with the clock stopped, DOES make a difference in my fatigue level, and same with having a 15 minute break to have a small snack and a drink every couple of hours. It's the break that's more important-but by putting a medical reason on it, it gets approved.

[bettyandbob]

ds needs to type. So, it's a different accommodation. He has no IEP, but does have a 504 plan because he is in public school and has the typing accommodation for all school work. It was easy to get the accommodation for the 504--very little testing required. The 504 was good enough for the accommodation to apply to IB testing, but not anything else (I guess IB authorities in Switzerland are more trusting than the ACT or CollegeBoard people). So, we spent a huge amount of money getting updated evaluations and applied to the CollegeBoard for accommodations. They required a full psych and OT. The psych did extra writing tests to support our argument. CollegeBoard decided in ds's favor so he has used the accomodation on both an AP exam and the SAT. Ds decided to take the ACT and so we applied for accommodation from them too. The answer was no. They basically said you could only have that accommodation if you had no arms (???).

 

Anyway, I recommend getting as much data as you can afford. At a minimum you need a full psychoeducational evaluation done within the last three years. You need to apply for the accommodations at least 4 months before planned testing. So, you need to make an appointment for the updated educational evaluations well before that. Where I live there can be a 3-9month wait to get an appointment for psychoeducational testing and then the evaluator may take a month or more to prepare the report.

 

Good luck.

[Guest almostdone]

Thank you so much for all of the responses. It's nice to know we are not alone. I can see that we have done a few things right (we had a full psychoeducational exam done the summer of 2009, we have found a great school counselor that gave my son the ACT test once and is happy to do it again, he has been given time and a half over multiple days so fatigue has not been a factor). However, I can see there are still several things we can do to try and tackle this from a different perspective. We will make an appointment with a neurologist and work with our psch tester about the wording on the evaluation. I also need to check on stacking the scores. I don't mind spending time and money on the front end if it will help with entrance to college.

 

My son has taken the ACT once and he scored an 18 with only completing half of each test (obviously processing speed is one of his key issues). He's taken practice tests at home with unlimited time and scored 25-28. I will continue working with him on studying/practicing for the test as it does sound difficult to receive the extra accommodations that are needed.

 

Thank you again for the help! It's just nice to know that I'm not the only parent that has faced this dilemma.