Early childhood special Education

Accommodations:

An accommodation is a change to how the learning takes place. It is not a change to what is begin taught. The objectives/outcomes of the lesson stay the same. Therefore, when implementing accommodations, you are assisting the child by making the learning more accessible and/or changing the way learning takes place, so what you are teaching can be more easily accessed and learned. Accommodations keep the learning objective intact for all children.

There are 3 types of accommodations. We call them Tiers and they are from Response to Intervention which you have information on in some of the readings below. The tiers are:

The tiers are:

1) strategies for the whole classroom,

2) strategies for small groups of children, with or without disabilities, and

3) strategies for the included child or children. 

There are 4 ways you can accommodate children: 

1. presentation

2. response

3. setting

4. timing and scheduling.

Let's look at accommodations for all 4 areas.

1. presentation-this is a change in how the material is presented. For example, more pictures so a child can use context clues when reading, or having someone read the text to the child instead of them reading it themselves.  Another example would be changing the directions so they are single step directions instead of multi-step directions so the child can understand and process the directions easier.

2. response-this is a change in how the child would respond to the material. For example, giving spoken answers instead of written answers, or pointing to a picture instead of saying the word.

3. setting-this is a change to the setting of the learning. For example, using pairs instead of independent work, or vice versa-having a child work independently instead of in a large group. Another example would be that the child might need to sit close to the teacher to focus or in front of the room instead of the back of the room.

4. timing and scheduling-this is a change to the way in which the timing or scheduling of tasks take place. For example, giving the child more breaks when doing a long task or a test, or giving the child more time to complete work. 

Each of these 4 areas can have an accommodation made by the teacher to any of the tiers.

For example, you may teach a lesson using a lot of manipulatives and in a hands-on way. This is for the whole class, but you are specifically implementing it because of the included child-they need this type of teaching to learn the material. This would be an example of a Tier 1 accommodation and would be about presentation.

Another example might be that the included child has pictures to go with the directions to an activity. This would also be about presentation but would be a Tier 3 accommodation since the accommodation is only for that specific child.

Please understand that these accommodations do not mean that you can isolate or exclude the child and then try to call it an accommodation! Accommodations are for the child to better learn, not so a teacher can penalize the child or isolate them from others. 

Now that we have looked at kinds of accommodations, let's look at the environments in which accommodations can take place. There are 3 areas you can make accommodations in: 

1. the physical environment of the classroom,

2. the instructional environment of the classroom, and 

3. the socio-emotional environment of the classroom.

Remember that accommodations are to assist children with meeting the expectations of the class and/or lesson/activity.

Modifications

Accommodations do not change the curriculum and if the materials are changed, they are changed for access, not for content. 

Modifications, on the other hand, mean that you are changing the materials or the curriculum.

Modifications are for when the content of the activity, lesson, concept, or skill are not developmentally appropriate for the child. Modifications change the learning objective or learning outcomes for that specific child.

For example, if the 5th grade reading text is too difficult for a child, a modification might be to use a 3rd grade text for that specific chil

Another example might be that when teaching a child how to write their first name, an accommodation might be the use of a pencil that's easier for the child to hold. A modification might be that instead of writing their name, they trace the letters of their name. 

A final example might be that children are learning secondary colors. An accommodation might be that each secondary color is separated in the lesson, and taught separately. A modification might be that only one secondary color is taught to the included child, not several, as the other children are learning. 

See the difference between an accommodation and a modification?

Teachers CANNOT modify on their own-we can only modify curriculum or material if the IEP tells us to do so. You cannot decide on your own that a child cannot learn at grade level and change their learning outcomes to something different!

Therefore, in our course, almost all assignments focus on accommodations, not modifications!