Accommodation vs Modification

Accommodation vs modification - two ways schools support student success regardless of individual learning differences and needs. These support systems alter how students learn, what they’re taught, or how they’re tested so that students with special needs can learn alongside their peers.

However, while the goal of both support systems is to help students, they are not the same. Understanding the difference between accommodations and modifications is important for creating inclusive learning environments that ensure all students feel supported in their learning journey.

Who Benefits From Accommodations and Modifications?

Accommodations and modifications in education are designed to support students with unique learning needs and challenges that could impact their ability to fully engage in the learning process. These students may have various physical or mental health conditions, such as:

• Learning differences like dyslexia, dysgraphia, or dyscalculia can affect reading, writing, or math skills, respectively.
• Attention-related issues such as ADHD or ADD make it challenging to focus or maintain attention during tasks.
• Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) can involve difficulties with social interaction, communication, and behavior.
• Physical disabilities or mobility impairments may affect movement, coordination, or accessing classroom materials.
• Sensory impairments affect vision or hearing, which might require alternative methods of instruction or communication.
• Speech and language disorders affect communication skills and require specialized support.
• Emotional or behavioral challenges sometimes make it difficult for students to regulate emotions or behavior in a classroom setting.
• Chronic health conditions such as epilepsy or diabetes can affect energy levels, concentration, or attendance.

In essence, reasonable accommodations and modifications aim to level the playing field for each individual student by providing tailored supports that meet their individual needs.

Accommodation vs Modification: What’s the Difference?

Although some teachers might mix up these terms in education and accessibility discussions, they’re actually quite different. In simple terms, accommodations involve extra assistance or adjustments that allow all students to handle the same coursework.

On the other hand, modifications mean tweaking the curriculum itself to fit students’ needs, especially those with some disability or learning difficulty.

In other words, while accommodations might change how a student tackles the same material as everyone else in class, modifications actually change what the student is expected to learn.

Understanding Accommodations

For students with disabilities, learning in a regular classroom setting alongside their classmates without disabilities can be a real struggle. The learning materials and supplementary aids may not be easily accessible, and showcasing what they have learned can be an uphill battle. That’s where accommodations come into play.

Accommodations provide extra supports that help students with disabilities to take on the same learning challenges and reach the same learning goal as their classmates who don’t face such obstacles.

For example, a student with visual impairment may have difficulty reading printed text. The teacher could offer accommodations in the form of an audio version of the text, large-print materials, or Braille materials.

A student with orthopedic challenges might struggle with writing their responses because of physical issues when using a pen or pencil. In this case, the teacher could permit them to use a speech-to-text device or allow oral responses.

It’s common for people to think that accommodations give students with disabilities an unfair edge, but that is not the case. It’s important to clarify that accommodations don’t change the rules for learning or testing what students learn. Instead, accommodations:

• Keep the learning goals the same
• Maintain the same standards for tasks
• Stick to the same learning materials as everyone else

In fact, when teachers use it appropriately, accommodations level the playing field. They provide students with disabilities or learning difficulties the chance to perform tasks on par with their peers without disabilities.

To really make the most of this support system, teachers need to personalize accommodations for each student’s unique needs. It’s important to understand that what works for one student with a particular disability might not work for another.

Take visual impairments, for example; while Braille might help some, others might find audiobooks a better fit. In any case, teachers should always follow what’s laid out in each student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP) to ensure they get the support they need to thrive.

Examples of Accommodations

1. Having instructions read aloud or providing audiobooks
2. Allowing students with vision impairments to sit closer to the board or providing magnification devices, Braille, or large print materials
3. Making special seating arrangements for ADHD students to minimize distractions
4. Allowing students to use human readers and text-to-speech or speech-to-text devices
5. Paraphrasing information or repeating directions
6. Providing extended time or offering breaks during test periods

Understanding Modifications

Some students face classroom challenges that extend beyond what accommodations can address. For students with moderate to severe disabilities, teachers may need to provide additional support and extra time to help them fully participate and thrive in the learning environment. This often means changing or modifying the content of what is taught, the assessment level, or the grading scale to meet the requirements of students with special needs.

In simple terms, students who receive modifications don’t have to learn the same material or skills as their classmates. For instance, a teacher might assign shorter reading tasks, less complex spelling tests, or fewer questions on exams, covering different material than the standard tests.

Supporting students by providing modifications generally means:

• The expectations for learning are adjusted
• Task requirements are simplified

That said, teachers should carefully consider and exhaust a student IEP or 504 plan before offering modifications. That’s because modifying what a student learns or the tests they take may result in them being less than fully engaged in the general education curriculum.

Examples of Modifications

1. Allowing a student with special needs or a learning disability to choose from a few options instead of having to develop responses entirely on their own
2. Ignoring certain educational aspects, like grammar or spelling, when grading assignments
3. Tailoring assignments to match the student’s current functional level, ensuring they are appropriately challenged
4. Reducing the quantity of reading material or the number of test questions to align with the student’s learning pace
5. Adjusting math problems to match the student’s proficiency level, such as completing simpler multiplication or addition tasks compared to their classmates
6. Assigning shorter or modified tasks, such as writing a single paragraph instead of a multi-paragraph essay or providing summarized texts instead of full-length readings

For teachers looking to learn more about creating individualized plans for students’ specific challenges, here is a comprehensive accommodations and modifications checklist.

Conclusion

Understanding what is involved in classroom accommodations and modifications can help teachers provide the right support to meet students’ diverse learning needs. With this understanding, teachers can more readily remove learning barriers that may otherwise hinder some students from fully participating in the learning process.

No doubt, implementing classroom accommodations and modifications is not always straightforward, especially in an inclusive classroom where students with special needs learn alongside those without disabilities.

To make things easier and ensure smooth coordination of assessments while keeping track of student accommodations and testing history, schools can turn to powerful tools like Test Hound.

This assessment coordination tool offers comprehensive features to plan and coordinate all state and local K-12 school assessments. With Test Hound, schools can automate their assessment processes, support students effectively, and foster an inclusive learning environment for all.

If your school is interested in new ways to improve the learning experience for children, you may also be interested in automating tasks and streamlining processes so that your teachers have more time to teach. Education Advanced offers a large suite of tools that may be able to help. For example, three of our most popular and effective tools are:

• Cardonex, our master schedule software, helps schools save time on building master schedules. Many schools used to spend weeks using whiteboards to organize the right students, teachers, and classrooms into the right order so that students could graduate on time and get their preferred classes. However, Cardonex can now be used to automate this task and deliver 90% of students' first-choice classes within a couple of days.
• Testhound, our test accommodation software, helps schools coordinate thousands of students across all state and local K-12 school assessments while taking into account dozens of accommodations (reading disabilities, physical disabilities, translations, etc.) for students.
• Pathways, our college and career readiness software, helps administrators and counselors create, track, and analyze graduation pathways to ensure secondary students are on track to graduate.
• Evaluation, our teacher evaluation software, which documents every step of the staff evaluation process,