Question about testing accommodations

[WoolC]

My son is 7 and has an autism diagnosis. We have homeschooled from the beginning and I am certain that we are dealing with learning disabilities. We have not had him formally evaluated academically because his anxiety is so severe and he has selective mutism so any results we could get working with an evaluator would not be very helpful or accurate compared to what we are able to do at home.

 

When writing he reverses almost all letters and numbers. He can decode words but fatigues and overwhelms easily with reading, I see progress in his reading but his younger brother is about to overtake him in fluency after only 6 months of formal phonics. We are struggling in math, no amount of drill is helping math facts to stick. We started out in Singapore but there was not enough review so we switched to CLE. The spiral review is helpful but he can't keep up with all of the speed drills and flash cards, it's just too much for him and I can tell he is counting up answers in his head every time. He is learning and improving, it's just so very slow.

 

We are in NC and are required to do testing for the first time this spring. I'm planning on administering the Iowa at home. How can I establish a need for testing accommodations without paying for formal evals knowing they won't be fruitful at this time for my son? Is this something that evals from our local school would demonstrate, even if my son will not cooperate with them?

[maize]

What kind of accommodations are you envisioning? The biggest issue I can see based on what you have posted would be time; if that is a concern perhaps you could choose an untimed test such as the Stanford?

Edited January 26, 2017 by maize

[WoolC]

Yes, I'm thinking of time. I have also heard someone mention an accommodation that allows questions to be read aloud to the student so that a difficulty reading doesn't affect performance in other areas.

 

I'm mainly concerned with establishing a precedent that accommodations are needed so that when we reach high school his options are open and he is able to receive accommodations for ACT etc. if he still needs them. After reading the other thread on that I would like to start a paper trail now so we don't have to stress about it later.

[maize]

Going through the school for testing and a written IEP might be worthwhile in that case; I would not decide against it on the assumption that they would not get any useful data. One of mine has social anxiety that frequently results in selective mutism, but he actually has done fairly well in most evaluation settings--to my surprise.

Edited January 26, 2017 by maize

[maize]

The process can take awhile though, so getting things moving right away would be good. In the meantime you may want to consider options other than the Iowa for this year's testing.

[EKS]

I'm mainly concerned with establishing a precedent that accommodations are needed so that when we reach high school his options are open and he is able to receive accommodations for ACT etc. if he still needs them. After reading the other thread on that I would like to start a paper trail now so we don't have to stress about it later.

 

Unfortunately, the paper trail starts with an evaluation where a diagnosis is given and particular accommodations are recommended.  Did the person who diagnosed autism give any recommendations for school accommodations?

[WoolC]

We have been through two formal evaluations with a psychologist and a psychiatrist that diagnosed autism but we were already homeschooling so they did not give us any formal school recommendations. One of the psychologists we saw discouraged us from even trying further academic testing because she didn't think it would reflect his potential since he wouldn't communicate with her.

Edited January 26, 2017 by WoolC

[Storygirl]

I think going through the school for evaluations might be helpful. Really, as long as you are homeschooling, it does not matter if they see his full potential. They just need to document his disabilities as a paper trail for the accommodations.

 

And yes, having a human reader can be an accommodation. But it is not allowed on the portion of the test that covers reading, just on the other sections.

 

You will need to check the guidelines for tests that you may have him take to see if it is permitted for you to provide accommodations without having evaluations first. To preserve the statistical accuracy of the tests, the companies are strict about what you may and may not do while proctoring a test.

 

It may be helpful as a baseline to have him take the tests this spring without accommodations, to demonstrate need.

 

You could contact the special education department of your local public schools to ask what they do when evaluating students with communication issues. They will have dealt with it before.

[maize]

We have been through two formal evaluations with a psychologist and a psychiatrist that diagnosed autism but we were already homeschooling so they did not give us any formal school recommendations. One of the psychologists we saw discouraged us from even trying further academic testing because she didn't think it would reflect his potential since he wouldn't communicate with her.

If these are recent evaluations you could go back to the psychologist and request they write up some accommodation recommendations. We also homeschool but got recommendations in our written report.

Edited January 26, 2017 by maize

[EKS]

I would ask the most recent evaluator to write an addendum to their report (and offer to pay for it) that states the school accommodations they would recommend. 

 

I also agree that getting a school evaluation, even if he is unable to communicate, will establish the sort of paper trail that the CB/ACT people want to see.  Also, getting an IEP and/or 504 plan would be a good thing (I enrolled my son in the local district's homeschool support program when he was in 7th and 8th grades just to get a 504--he did his required annual standardized testing at the school with those accommodations).  

[WoolC]

I think going through the school for evaluations might be helpful. Really, as long as you are homeschooling, it does not matter if they see his full potential. They just need to document his disabilities as a paper trail for the accommodations.

 

And yes, having a human reader can be an accommodation. But it is not allowed on the portion of the test that covers reading, just on the other sections.

 

You will need to check the guidelines for tests that you may have him take to see if it is permitted for you to provide accommodations without having evaluations first. To preserve the statistical accuracy of the tests, the companies are strict about what you may and may not do while proctoring a test.

 

It may be helpful as a baseline to have him take the tests this spring without accommodations, to demonstrate need.

 

You could contact the special education department of your local public schools to ask what they do when evaluating students with communication issues. They will have dealt with it before.

Thank you for making the point about having them document the disabilities as opposed to his potential. I'm so used to building on his strengths and trying to reach his full potential that I wasn't making this paradigm shift. Obviously for accommodation purposes I really only need them to see the deficits we're working with.

 

I think we will test without accommodations this spring to get a baseline. If I'm reading correctly the Iowa is untimed for 1st grade anyway. I will look into the Standford test as well. We will go ahead and get on the wait list for school evals as well.

 

Thank you all for your suggestions!