Disability Identification and Educational Accommodations

Lessons From the 2019 Admissions Scandal

Bibliographic Data

ID9730974
AuthorsBenjamin J Lovett (0000-0003-4785-3070, Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume49
Issue2
Pages125-129
Publication date2020-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueEducational Researcher (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0013-189X • E-ISSN: 1935-102X
PublisherAmerican Educational Research Association (AERA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.3102/0013189x20902100
OpenAlexW3001388250
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited18

A recent, widely publicized scandal involved students who obtained fraudulent diagnoses of learning disabilities in an effort to get accommodations on college admissions tests. Although the exact circumstances of the scandal are unusual, the methods used to obtain diagnoses and accommodations illustrate widespread problems with current policies. These problems include certain disability identification methods that overemphasize performance on diagnostic tests, a lack of attention to the unfair advantages that unwarranted accommodations can provide, and a lack of commonly used guidelines for making accommodations decisions based on credible, objective data. The scandal was a rare consequence of these problems, but far more frequent consequences involve unequal treatment of students from different backgrounds and test scores that fail to reflect actual student skill levels

Developmental psychology · Diagnostic test · Disability discrimination · Identification (biology · Learning disability · Mathematics education · Medical diagnosis · Medical education · Political science · Standardized test · Test (biology · Applied Psychology · Disability Education and Employment · Down syndrome and intellectual disability research · Emergency and Acute Care Studies · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology

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