No abstract

Students in Grades 4, 5, 7, and 8 ( N = 1,343) took part in a study to determine whether students with learning disabilities (LD) would benefit from having mathematics test items read aloud. Two 30-item alternate forms of a large-scale multiple-choice mathematics test were administered. One form was presented in standard format; the other was read aloud to students from a video monitor. Using linguistic features, 4 or 5 Difficult Reading items were selected from each form. The performance of students with LD on these items was compared to that of a randomly selected group of general education students. Analysis of variance showed mixed results. Elementary school students with LD tended to perform better when test items were read aloud; general education students at this level did not receive this benefit. No significant interactions were found at the middle school level. Results are discussed in relationship to previous studies.

In this study, we examined whether a teacher-paced video (TPV) accommodation or a student-paced computer (SPC) accommodation provided differential access for students with disabilities versus their general education peers on a large-scale math test. Our results showed a statistically significant main effect for students' status. General education students outperformed students with disabilities on both the SPC and TPV math tests. When TPV versus SPC scores were analyzed by status, it was found that pacing significantly influenced the mean scores. In other words, the mean scores for students with disabilities and the lowest general education students provided differential access when the accommodation was student-paced on a computer versus when the teacher paced the accommodation via the video.