With the paradigm shift away from providing only accommodations to instead providing three or more tiers of accessibility features that include a variety of accessibility supports and different ways of executing and labeling them, educators, parents, and students may be confused by the differences in terminology from one assessment to the next.

On June, 20, 2016, NCEO, the Assessing Special Education Students (ASES) State Collaborative on Assessments and Student Standards (SCASS), and the English Language Learners (ELL) SCASS held a joint forum on the need for common accessibility language across assessment platforms. This pre-session to the National Conference on Student Assessment was attended by 80 individuals, including State education agency (SEA) representatives, technical assistance (TA) providers, and vendors.

The forum format let participants hear several perspectives on common accessibility language. Vendor representatives from Pearson, Measured Progress, and American Institutes for Research (AIR) demonstrated their products’ accessibility features.

Breakout groups then discussed common accessibility language further, with conversations focusing on three groups: general education students, English learners (ELs), and students with Individualized Education Programs (IEPs) and 504 plans. The breakout groups considered the possible challenges and benefits of establishing common accessibility language for assessments.

A full report of the forum is available, as well as a report that explores the issues surrounding common accessibility language:

Forum on Common Language for States and Assessment Vendors

White Paper on Common Accessibility Language for States and Assessment Vendors