Disability Service
Guidelines for Administration of Exams

GUIDELINES FOR OSD, AAC OR SSS STAFF ADMINISTERING EXAMS TO STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES AT UMC

Exam accommodations will be provided to students with disabilities who have documented their disability to the UMC Office for Students with Disabilities, and who have had their accommodation requests approved by the coordinator of OSD. This initial procedure is required to insure that requests for accommodations are legitimate and appropriate to the specific disability.

At the time that a student requests exam accommodations for specific classes (usually at the beginning of a quarter) a letter of notification is sent out to the instructor of each course in which the student is requesting test accommodations. The student receives a copy of this letter as well, and is instructed to notify staff in OSD, AAC or SSS in advance of the scheduled exam time so that arrangements can be made among staff for coverage. Some faculty also want to be contacted again by the student indicating his/her intention to use test accommodations. It is suggested that students make these requests (to the staff person of their choice) two or more days in advance, but a minimum of 24 hours notice is expected. If that staff person is unable to assist with the particular exam, the staff person is responsible for finding other staff to proctor the exam, and to inform the student regarding the arrangements.

The designated staff person is expected to contact the course instructor to obtain a copy or copies of the exam. Two copies are requested if the exam is going to be read to the student, but only one is needed if the request is for extended time or a quiet place.

If at all possible, the exam should be administered to the student with a disability at the same time as other students are completing the exam. The course instructor must approve any other arrangement.

Special Instructions/Tools

Instructors should be asked if there are any special instructions regarding the exam, or if students are allowed to use additional formula sheets, notes, or other test helps. Usually, these are the same supports offered to all students in the course with the following exceptions: calculator and/or formula sheet for students with diagnosed math disabilities, or distracter lists or word banks for students with severe retrieval problems due to head injury, trauma, or processing deficits.

Time Extensions

For course exams where students without disabilities are allowed a fixed amount of time, students with disabilities are allowed time and one half, or double time according to University regulations.

Computer Use

Computer use during exams must be approved in advance with the course instructor, since computer use in some exam situations could result in inappropriate access to answers. At other times, computer usage is not a problem as long as students are not connected to the LAN.

Breaks

If the exam is expected to take more than one hour, many students benefit from a short break half way through. If a break is planned, the exam must be separated in advance so that students cannot look ahead on the exam or change answers on the first half that was completed once they begin the second half of the exam. Breaks should not exceed 10-15 minutes and students need to leave all books, notes and workbooks stored during the break time.

Once the exam is completed, the staff person in charge should place the exam(s) and all related materials in a large envelope, seal it and return it to the designated faculty member promptly. Occasionally, staff will need to enclose a note of explanation regarding some aspect of the test document itself, or the testing experience, if an irregularity was identified or influenced the testing.

Common Test Accommodation Requests and Responses

Quiet place for testing

Students who request a quiet place for testing are often those with psychological disabilities for whom extreme anxiety interferes with test performance, or those with ADD or ADHD who have a great deal of difficulty screening out sights and sounds in the environment that impact significantly on their ability to concentrate and complete tasks. Students using this accommodation should work in an area that is quiet…preferably in a separate room. Because these students may not always have a staff person actually in the room proctoring the exam, they should leave all books, papers, computers, book bags and even jackets outside the testing area. This accommodation often includes some time extension as well.

Exam reader

Students who request exam readers are most often those with reading disabilities such as dyslexia or a visual impairment. A quiet, non-distracting environment is also needed when a student works with an exam reader to create the best environment for testing, and to minimize any embarrassment that a student might experience. When serving as an exam reader, the reader must be careful not to assist in any way with the exam responses such as by defining terms that were a part of the material covered for the exam. Sometimes a student might ask for clarification of the question by saying, "Does this question mean….?" Or ask if the question can be stated in another way. These are generally fine to respond to as long as the reader feels confidant that they can offer an accurate response without disclosing the test answer.

Serving as a scribe or assisting with an essay exam

Students with serious writing disabilities often request a scribe (someone to write for them) when they are working on an essay or short answer exam. These students also tend to organize responses poorly and leave out a great deal of the information that they may have offered verbally in response to the question. To maximize their opportunities to offer full and complete responses, a test proctor might want to simply "take notes" while the student verbalizes the answer to the question. If the question has multiple sections, read the entire question through with the student, and then have them answer one part at a time. After all of the notes are down and numbered according to a logical order that the student identifies, the full response can be written on the exam or typed on a computer and spell-checked. At other times, the scribe’s function may simply be to write down exactly what the student has verbalized. It is recommended that the scribe sign his/ her name on the exam and indicate that they took the student’s dictation or supervised the computer use.

Preparing a word bank or distracter list for a student

Students with learning disabilities, head injury, psychological disability, or other condition that results in severe information retrieval problems should be given access to a word bank or distracter list during an exam that is "fill in the blank" in nature (many lab tests have this format). The word bank is simply an unordered list of terms used in the chapters covered by the exam. For this accommodation, a student must make requests in advance so that the word banks can be prepared from material obtained from the instructor, the course text, the student’s notes or material downloaded from notes placed on the Web.

Multiple testing sessions for completion of a single exam

Students with disabilities such as muscular dystrophy, multiple sclerosis, lupus, chronic asthma, heart disease, etc. may need to complete exams over more than one test period as a result of fatigue and / or loss of concentration. Other accommodations such as a scribe or reader may also be helpful in these situations. These arrangements must be approved in advance with OSD and the faculty member.