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- Online Modules Demonstration on Accessibility Features and Accommodations for EducatorsFormats: PDF
This presentation, showing an online modules demonstration on accessibility features and accommodations for educators, was presented at the 2020 Council for Exceptional Children (CEC) annual conference.
Published: 2020-02-06 - V2-3: General Education Teacher Communicating with ParentsFormats: Online
A math teacher calls a parent to discuss a student's difficulties in the classroom. They talk about the possible use of accommodations to help the student succeed in the classroom.
Published: 2014-05-05 - V5-2: Meeting with Featured Student after Assessment AccommodationFormats: Online
A special education teacher interviews a student after the state test. The student shares her perspective on whether the accommodation "worked."
Published: 2014-05-05 - NCEO Annual Performance Reports and State Performance Plans: 2004-2005 State Assessment DataFormats: PDF
A report summarizing assessment data from State Performance Plans.
Published: June 2007 - NCEO Annual Performance Reports and State Performance Plans: 2003-2004 State Assessment DataFormats: PDF
A report summarizing assessment data from State Performance Plans.
Published: June 2006 - TIES Center Reports: Separate School Placement Trends by Category and Age for Students with Extensive Support Needs (#105)
The purpose of this report is to examine the trends across the country over the past decade related to the placement of students with extensive support needs (ESN) in separate schools. For this report, state-level data from federally reported sources for students with ESN were analyzed, specifically, students identified with the disabilities of autism, intellectual disability, multiple disabilities, and deaf-blindness, to determine changes over time in the number of students served in separate settings as well as any variances that may have occurred by age and location (state). The current study confirmed that there has not been a significant change in the overall placement for students with ESN since 2012 even though academic expectations have become more rigorous over time.
Published: 8/1/2022 - School Leader Series: Working with IEP Teams to Make State Assessment Participation and Accessibility and Accommodations Decisions (School Leader Series Brief #3)
This resource is designed to provide guidance to school leaders about working with IEP teams to make state assessment participation and accessibility and accommodations decisions. Developed in collaboration with CCSSO, the Assessment, Standards, and Education for Students with Disabilities (ASES) and School Leadership Development and Supports (SLDS) state collaboratives made important contributions to this document. This resource highlights what school leaders should ensure IEP teams do when making decisions about state assessment participation, what factors must IEP teams not consider when making assessment participation decisions for students with disabilities and what school leaders can do to ensure that IEP teams select appropriate accessibility features and accommodations for students with disabilities. It also gives talking points for school leaders to use when addressing key stakeholders on the topic.
Published: 9/28/2021 
NCEO Reports: Diploma Options, Graduation Requirements, and Exit Exams for Youth with Disabilities: 2017 National Study (#409)This report presents the results of a study undertaken to update what is known about the status of graduation policies across the nation. Three research questions served as the focus of this national study of high school graduation requirements and diploma options for students with and without disabilities: (1) What is the range and variation in state graduation requirements and diploma options across the United States for students with and without disabilities? (2) What are the intended and unintended consequences for students when they are required to pass exit exams to receive a high school diploma? (3) What are the intended and unintended consequences of using single or multiple diploma options for students with disabilities? This study found great variability in state graduation requirements for students with and without disabilities, and offers several recommendations to help guide state and local district decision making when implementing state graduation requirements and different diploma options for students with disabilities.
Published: March 2019
NCEO Brief: Exploring Alternate ELP Assessments for ELLs with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (#10)A brief presenting information on what we know about the participation of English language learners (ELLs) with disabilities in state alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards (AA-AAS), highlighting information collected by NCEO that informs what we know about the participation of ELLs with disabilities in alternate English language proficiency (ELP) assessments. Topics addressed in the brief include: (a) the size of the population of ELLs with disabilities; (b) what states say about the inclusion of ELLs with disabilities in alternate ELP assessments, and the participation of ELLs with disabilities in alternate ELP assessments; and (c) experts' recommendations about alternate ELP assessments for ELLs with significant cognitive disabilities. Conclusions focus on four recommendations for consideration.
Published: July 2014
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Results of a Cognitive Interview Study of Immediate Feedback and Revision Opportunities for Students with Disabilities in Large Scale Assessments (#92)A report covering a study that was part of a larger research project originally designed to investigate an approach to Alternate Assessments with Modified Achievement Standards that provides immediate feedback and revision opportunities for students when they answer test items. After answering an item, students would receive feedback about whether the answer was correct or incorrect and would be given additional chances to correct their answer (for partial credit). This particular study employed cognitive interviews to determine whether: (a) Feedback and Revision had a qualitative impact on student interaction with the assessment (i.e., students' interview responses suggest that the feedback and revision feature had an impact on those students' success on the test), and (b) there were qualitative differences between groups of students with and without disabilities (i.e., students' interview responses suggest that the utility and effects of feedback and revision differ for these two groups).
Published: December 2013
NCEO Technical Reports: State Reports on the Participation and Performance of English Language Learners with Disabilities in 2006-2007 (#54)A report reviewing state reports on the participation and performance of English Language Learners (ELLs) with Disabilities in 2006-2007. Previous data reports suggested that ELLs with disabilities tend to have a lower percentage of students scoring proficient than their English proficient peers on regular assessments. But in 2006-2007, ELLs with disabilities out-performed the total number of students taking alternate assessments based on alternate achievement standards. This improvement surprised researchers, leading them to speculate on possible causes. However, not all states reported this data and, even among those that did, the number of students in these data is low, leading the researchers to urge caution in interpreting the practical significance of the differences in performance. On English language proficiency assessments, ELLs with disabilities usually scored lower than ELLs without disabilities on measures of reading, writing, listening, and speaking.
Published: May 2009
NCEO Technical Reports: Student Think-Aloud Reflections on Comprehensible and Readable Assessment Items: Perspectives on What Does and Does Not Make an Item Readable (#48)A document reporting on research related to large-scale assessments for students with learning disabilities in reading. The researchers examined the role of "readable and comprehensible" test items that could make assessments more universally designed, using think-aloud methods to better understand how interventions to improve readability affect student performance. Reducing word counts in items and making important words bold did not seem to affect student achievement but vocabulary did. Students had difficulty with non-construct vocabulary in both the stem and answer choices of items as well as with words that have negative prefixes (e.g., dis). This suggests that readability correlates with vocabulary and that construct and non-construct vocabulary must be clearly defined in order to make tests more accessible.
Published: September 2007
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Access Assistants for State Assessments: A Study of State Guidelines for Scribes, Readers, and Sign Language Interpreters (#58)This year 2005 report describes a national study on state guidelines provided for human access assistants that help students who use either a scribe, reader or sign language interpreter accommodation on state assessments. Overall, 22 states had guidelines for one or more of the three access assistants that were the focus of the study. Variations across state guidelines extended from breadth and depth to format and ease of access. Further, 14 states with guidelines also had described the qualifications or characteristics required of these access assistants. The report concludes with a description of several challenges to the development of state guidelines for access assistants, and recommendations for meeting those challenges.
Published: December 2005
NCEO Synthesis Reports: One State's Story: Access and Alignment to the GRADE-LEVEL Content for Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities (#57)This year 2005 report presents a case study from the state of Massachusetts for providing students with significant cognitive disabilities with grade-level aligned content. It addresses opportunity to learn, and emphasizes the importance of working to get these students as close as possible to the grade-level standards that typical students are learning, as this is important for the student's education and is an important statement to make about the goal of special education. The author then describes how Massachusetts equips special educators with a conceptual standards roadmap of what is expected of all students, a process for customizing that curriculum for each student., and a method of data collection to document a student's progress learning targeted skills in the student's portfolio that gets used in the school, and later submitted to the state as an alternate assessment.
Published: December 2005
NCEO Synthesis Reports: 2003 State Policies on Assessment Participation and Accommodations for Students with Disabilities (#56)This year 2005 report analyzes states' 2003 participation and accommodation policies. Authors found that these policies continue to become more detailed compared to previous years. Key findings from this analysis include: (1) Clarifications and specifications attached to specific accommodations in state policies--especially those with implications for resulting scores--are increasing, (2) States are providing guidance to readers, scribes, and sign language interpreters--as well as direction for IEP teams--on the process for using accommodations that are not on an approved list, (3), The number of states permitting the use of accommodations for all students is increasing, and (4) The most controversial accommodations continue to be read aloud (questions), calculator, spellchecker, and proctor/scribe. The authors note that the analysis did not attempt to determine the degree to which state policies complied with federal requirements under IDEA or NCLB.
Published: June 2005
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Measuring Academic Achievement of Students with Significant Cognitive Disabilities: Building Understanding of Alternate Assessment Scoring Criteria (#50)This year 2003 report, compares and contrasts the assumptions and values embedded in scoring criteria used in five states for their alternate assessments. It discusses how the selected states are addressed the challenge of defining successful outcomes for students with significant disabilities as reflected in state criteria for scoring alternate assessment responses or evidence and how these definitions of successful outcomes have been refined over time. The five states use different alternate assessment approaches, including portfolio assessment, performance assessment, IEP linked body of evidence, and traditional test formats. Findings showed a great deal of overlap across the alternate assessment approaches, as they tended to represent a continuum of approaches as opposed to discrete categories.
Published: June 2003
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Massachusetts: One State's Approach to Setting Performance Levels on the Alternate Assessment (#48)This year 2002 report describes Massachusetts' approach to setting performance levels on its Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System (MCAS) Alternate Assessment. The state's portfolio approach was based on "expanded" state standards describing academic outcomes appropriate for students with significant disabilities. The report explains the technical phase of standard setting and describes the context of earlier conversations and theoretical debates that came before their decisions in the development process of the alternate assessment. The report further describes how performance levels were calibrated between the alternate and general assessments, due to the alternate being used for high school diploma requirements, and the ways performance levels in each strand were combined to produce an overall performance level.
Published: November 2002
NCEO Synthesis Reports: Access to Computer-Based Testing for Students with Disabilities (#45)This year 2002 report recommends a five step process for the transformation of paper and pencil tests to computer-based tests based on an overview of the opportunities and challenges of computer-based testing and a presentation of research findings and accommodation considerations. This process assumes that the principles of universally designed assessments have been followed and include the following five steps: (1) assemble a group of experts to guide the transformation, (2) decide how each accommodation will be incorporated into the computer-based test, (3) Consider each accommodation or assessment feature in light of the constructs being tested, (4) consider the feasibility of incorporating the accommodation into the computer-based test, and (5) consider training implications for staff and students. Authors also make initial considerations for common accommodations within the categories of timing/scheduling, presentation, response, and setting.
Published: June 2002- Accommodations Toolkit: Preferential Seating: States’ Accessibility Policies, 2023Formats: Online
This summary of states’ accessibility policies for preferential seating is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO).
Published: 12/16/2024 - Accommodations Toolkit: Highlighting: ResearchFormats: Online
This fact sheet on highlighting is part of the Accommodations Toolkit published by the National Center on Educational Outcomes (NCEO). It summarizes information and research findings on the use of highlighting as an accessibility feature or accommodation.
Published: 12/16/2024