Yi-Chen Wu and Martha Thurlow
July, 2018
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Wu, Y.-C. , & Thurlow, M. L. (2018). 2015-2016 APR snapshot #17: Students in special education receiving assessment accommodations. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Assessment accommodations are changes in testing materials or procedures that allow students to show their knowledge and skills rather than the effects of their disabilities. This brief provides information on the number of students with disabilities receiving accommodations and the performance of these students on the general statewide assessment used for Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) accountability. Using federally submitted data from the 2015-2016 school year, we present information on accommodations for reading and mathematics statewide assessments administered to grade 8 students (and grade 4 to show a comparison to grade 8 data). Figures displaying statewide accommodations data for other grades are provided in this report via links following each figure. Data tables for all grade levels are available from NCEO at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data.
Throughout this report, we use the term “students with disabilities” to refer to students receiving special education services. Thus, students on 504 accommodation plans are not included in these analyses.
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Figure 1 shows the percentage of students with disabilities in regular states receiving accommodations during statewide reading and mathematics assessments in grade 8. The states are ordered from those that have the highest percentages of students receiving accommodations for the regular mathematics assessment to those that have the lowest percentages of students receiving accommodations for this assessment. The figure indicates that visible differences were evident between the percentage of students with disabilities receiving accommodations for mathematics and reading assessments in more than 20 states.
Sixteen states reported a difference in accommodation rates between content areas of more than 5 percentage points, and 13 out of 16 states reported smaller percentages of students with disabilities received accommodations in reading than in math assessments. The figure also shows that in 12 states, more than 80 percent of students with disabilities received accommodations during both the statewide reading and mathematics assessments; in these six states, 25 percent or fewer students received accommodations during testing in both reading and mathematics (see data available at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data). The percentages of students with disabilities receiving accommodations in mathematics was likely to be equal to or higher than the percentage of students receiving accommodations in reading assessments across all the grades.
Figure 1. Percentage of Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Reading and Mathematics Assessments in Regular States
Grade 3-7 and High School. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade HS |
Figure 2 shows the percentage of students with disabilities in the unique states receiving accommodations during statewide reading and mathematics assessments in grade 8. Differences between reading and mathematics accommodations among the unique states that reported both data in grade 8 (n = 9) was between 0 percentage points and 1.7 percentage points. Four of these states showed no difference between the percentages of students receiving accommodations for reading and for mathematics assessments. Six unique states had more than 80 percent of students receiving accommodations for both reading and mathematics. (See data tables available at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data.
Figure 2. Percentage of Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Reading and Mathematics Assessments in Unique States
Grade 3-7 and High School. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade HS |
Figure 3 shows the percentage of students with disabilities in regular states receiving accommodations during statewide reading assessments in grade 4 and grade 8. The figure shows states ordered by their grade 4 rates of students using accommodations for the regular reading assessment. The figure indicates visible differences between the percentages of students with disabilities receiving accommodations in the two grade levels. In the 11 states with differences greater than 10 percentage points, five states had higher percentages of students receiving accommodations in grade 4 than in grade 8. A total of 29 regular states had lower percentages of students with disabilities receiving reading accommodations in grade 4 than in grade 8. The figure also shows that in eight states had more than 75 percent of students with disabilities who received accommodations during the statewide reading assessment in both grade 4 and grade 8 (see data available at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data. Similar results were found for the percentage of students with disabilities receiving accommodations in grade 4 and grade 8 mathematics assessments (see Figure 4).
Figure 3. Percentage of Grade 4 and Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Reading Assessments in Regular States
Figure 4. Percentage of Grade 4 and Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Mathematics Assessments in Regular States
Figure 5 shows the percentage of students with disabilities in unique states (n = 6) receiving accommodations during statewide reading assessments in grade 4 and grade 8. Seven unique states reported data on the percentages of mathematics accommodations received for both grades 4 and 8 (see Figure 6). Differences in accommodation rates in unique states that reported data were as much as 21.8 percentage points in both reading and mathematics between grade 4 and grade 8 data (see data tables available at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data). All six unique states with reading accommodations data for both grade 4 and grade 8 showed that the percentage was higher in grade 4 than in grade 8. Similar results were found in mathematics assessments (see Figure 6).
Figure 5. Percentage of Grade 4 and Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Reading Assessments in Unique States
Figure 6. Percentage of Grade 4 and Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations in 2015-2016 Mathematics Assessments in Unique States
Figure 7 shows performance of students with disabilities who received accommodations on grade 8 statewide reading regular assessments (in terms of the percentage of students performing at proficient or above) along with the percentage of students receiving accommodations in regular states. Only states that reported information for both performance and number of students receiving accommodations are included in Figure 7 (n=44). Seven states were excluded from this figure because two states had small cell sizes, one state did not identify students receiving accommodations, one state’s performance data were suppressed because of quality issues, and two states did not report data because their assessments were cancelled. This figure indicates that there was no evident relationship between the percentage of students receiving accommodations and their performance on the reading assessment. This conclusion should be interpreted with caution because it refers only to overall relationships. It does not speak to the performance of individual students who used accommodations.
Figure 7. Percentage of Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations and Scoring Proficient or Above in 2015-2016 Regular Reading Assessments in Regular States
Grade 3 - 7 and High School Reading. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade HS |
Grades 3 - High School Math. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade 8 |
 Grade HS |
The same finding of no apparent relationship was true in unique states (see Figure 8). State data for unique states (n = 9) are available in data tables available at nceo.info/Resources/publications/APRsnapshot/data. The proficiency rates in unique state regular reading assessment for 8th graders ranged from as low as 3.6 percent to as high as 28.6 percent while accommodation rates varied (in five unique states the number of students were proficient were suppressed due to small cell size). For example, the unique state with the lowest reading proficiency rate did not have the highest rate of students with disabilities receiving accommodations on regular reading assessments across grade levels.
Figure 8. Percentage of Grade 8 Students with Disabilities Receiving Accommodations and Scoring Proficient or Above s in 2015-2016 Regular Reading Assessments in Unique States
Grade 3 - 7 and High School Reading. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade HS |
Grades 3 - High School Math. Click the below images to enlarge.
 Grade 3 |
 Grade 4 |
 Grade 5 |
 Grade 6 |
 Grade 7 |
 Grade 8 |
 Grade HS |
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The information presented in this report summarizes the accommodations data submitted by states to the U.S. Department of Education for the year 2015-2016. Considerable variability among states was evident in the percentage of students with disabilities receiving accommodations on the grade 8 reading and mathematics statewide assessments. Further, in many states more students with disabilities received accommodations for the mathematics assessment than received them for the reading assessment. Also evident were differences in many states between the percentages of students receiving accommodations in grade 8 compared to grade 4, with a slight trend toward a higher percentage of students with disabilities receiving accommodations at the grade 8 level for the regular states; the unique states showed the opposite trend. Finally, there appeared to be no relation between the percentage of students with disabilities receiving accommodations and the percentage proficient on the grade 8 regular reading and mathematics assessments.
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Lazarus, S. S., Thurlow, M. L., Lail, K. E., & Christensen, L. (2009). A longitudinal analysis of state accommodations policies: Twelve years of change, 1993-2005. Journal of Special Education, 43(2), 67-80.
Rogers, C. M., Lazarus, S. S., & Thurlow, M. L. (2016). A summary of the research on the effects of test accommodations: 2013-2014 (NCEO Report 402). Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Thurlow, M., & Vang, M. (2013). 2010-2011 APR snapshot #5: Assessment accommodations use by students receiving special education services. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Vang, M., & Thurlow, M. (2015). 2011-2012 APR snapshot #8: Assessment accommodations use by students receiving special education services. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Vang, M., Thurlow, M., & Altman, J. (2012). 2008-2009 APR snapshot #2: Assessment accommodations use by special education students. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Wu, Y.-C., & Thurlow, M. (2016). 2013-2014 APR snapshot #11: Assessment accommodations use by students receiving special education services. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.
Thurlow, M., & Wu, Y.-C., (2016). 2014-2015 APR snapshot #14: Assessment accommodations use by students receiving special education services. Minneapolis, MN: University of Minnesota, National Center on Educational Outcomes.