Your child has been identified as learning disabled and has received appropriate services at school. Now enrolled in high school, he or she plans to apply to a college which requires SAT scores.
Each year approximately 2 percent of students taking the SAT do so with accommodations. Your child may be eligible if his or her disability currently requires testing accommodations at school, documentation supports the need, and your child receives and uses requested accommodations for school-based tests. Also, a plan for testing accommodations in school must have been in place at least four months before taking the SAT.
Your child should request the appropriate SAT accommodations that affect his or her testing performance. Due to policy changes in recent years, students with disabilities are no longer penalized for non-standard test administration, nor are their scores flagged. If your child has taken the SAT without accommodations, consider requesting them before he or she retakes the test.
To start the procedure, the school psychologist or guidance counselor completes the College Board’s Student Eligibility Form. Supporting documentation includes the specific diagnosed disability with current evaluations or eligibility reviews. Relevant educational, developmental, and medical history, criteria used to support the identification of the disability, the professional credentials of the evaluators, as well as a description of the disability’s functional limitations and the accommodation(s) being requested for the SAT must also be included.
Your child’s eligibility may also be determined by submitting documentation directly to the College Board for review by a panel of learning disabilities’ experts. However, most guidance counselors are familiar with the Board’s verification process, and if the guidelines are followed, they can save you time and paperwork.
Once the Board establishes your child’s need for accommodations, those accommodations may be used for the Board’s major tests including the PSAT/NMSQ, SAT I and II, and Advanced Placement (AP). The Board will request an annual renewal notification by your child’s guidance or special education services’ department.
Accommodations will not be granted if your child’s documentation fails to meet the Board’s guidelines, or if the requested accommodation has not been proven to affect his or her testing performance. If your request is not approved, make certain all related comprehensive testing and diagnostic techniques used to identify your child’s disability have been reported.
For more information, contact your child’s high school guidance counselor, visit the College Board website at
www.collegeboard.com
or call the Educational Testing Service (ETS) at: (609) 921-9000.
For a list of possible testing accommodations, visit
http://www.collegeboard.com/ss d/student/accom.html
A comprehensive information website about learning disabilities can be found at
http://www.ldonline.org/ldbasi cs
Find a step-by-step process for requesting SAT accommodations at
http://www.collegeboard.com/st udent/testing/sat/reg/ssd.html