Online Pre-IPT—Oral Tests: Accommodations

The purpose of testing accommodations is to provide students with disabilities an equal opportunity to demonstrate their language proficiency. The goal is keeping the test’s construct and scoring the same while accommodating the way the test is administered to test takers with special needs to ensure that all participants can meet the same skill challenges in the test. In this spirit and on a case-by-case basis where appropriate documentation exists, students with disabilities may receive testing accommodations.

It is important to follow school, district, and state guidelines regarding the appropriate process for finding out about a student’s need for testing accommodations. Typically, information provided by parents, teachers, special education specialists, and other relevant professionals can be taken into consideration when making these decisions. However, it is important to note that potential English learners who are newly entering U.S. schools may not have had access to special education or support services if they have attended school abroad, or they may use different terminology to explain accommodation resources they have used or require.

Moreover, some accommodations that are used routinely during the student’s instructional program and classroom assessments may not be appropriate given the purpose of the IPT as a measure of the student’s proficiency in English or Spanish. For example, the use of a sign language interpreter is not appropriate when testing a student’s listening and speaking ability, because the IPT has not been validated for evaluating proficiency in American Sign Language or the various Spanish Sign Languages. It is also important to note that states may have specific guidelines about the use of test accommodations, which schools must adhere to.

Many items in the Pre-IPT Oral Test are based on a story board and story pieces, and alternate, tactile materials for these are not available. Therefore, adapting the Pre-IPT Oral Test to blind students would require modifying the tasks in ways that would make it a different test from that offered to sighted students.

Since the Pre-IPT Oral Test is administered individually and none of the items are timed, extended testing time is not considered a testing accommodation but rather, adaptable timing is a feature of the test for all students. Since all test pictures are large in format and the test entails no written materials, large print is not applicable.