Accommodations Are Not Privileges
People do not have to "earn" that to which they are legally entitled
It’s not special treatment
I wrote this article focused on students in elementary school, however much of the same principles apply to anyone with a disability requiring any form of accommodation.
Businesses, employers, and other public institutions should be making their services and job opportunities accessible to all.
And, should a person requiring accommodations be the best qualified for the position and is hired, those accommodations are considered doing the bare minimum to provide an inclusive workplace. Accommodating a disability — regardless of context or environment — is simply doing the right thing, it is not special treatment.
Asynchrony
When I was in grade seven I was in a 7/8 split class. I was really bored with most of the work, so my teacher allowed me to do a lot of the grade eight curriculum instead.
One day I got into trouble for something (I can’t remember what it was, but I’m sure I did it) and my teacher said my behaviour was not “mature” enough to demonstrate an ability to work above my grade level.
Riiiiight. A 12 year old is not demonstrating the same level of maturity as a 14 year old. Shocker.
What I (still) need people to understand is intellectual or academic abilities are not the same thing as maturity.
Gifted and twice exceptional (2e)students develop asynchronously: this means while some cognitive abilities well exceed the average for their age, other developmental areas lag behind.
Granted, this was about 25 years ago, the neurology and cognitive development of twice exceptional learners was not well understood when I was a pre-teen. I’m sure a lot has changed since then, right?
Right?!
Demonstrating (mis)understanding
A few years ago my son was in grade two. He had an IEP which indicated he is twice exceptional (2e — gifted with ADHD), and therefore would need an adapted education plan to meet his academic needs.
Well into the second week, my son was bringing home cut-and-paste learn-to-read activities. He complained about being bored at school. Given he was already reading well above grade level, I was not surprised.
We had met with the classroom teacher prior to the school year starting and had gone over everything outlined in his IEP. The teacher was well aware of our son’s needs, strengths, and challenges.
After my son complained of being bored, I reached out to the teacher and asked about our son’s enriched curriculum, as discussed at our earlier meeting. The teacher told me she needed my son to demonstrate his ability to complete the current work before she would allow him to work ahead.
That was not at all what we had discussed.
He had already demonstrated his abilities on his psychoeducational assessment, that’s what it’s for. That’s why the teacher was given a copy and the school psychologist explained the entire document in-depth to all of us.
My son was refusing to complete the current work because to him it was tedious, repetitive, and boring. The information provided with our son’s IEP explained that gifted students should only be required to demonstrate understanding before being able to move on.
Rather than completing several cut-and-paste booklets in their entirety, he should have been asked to do a page or two from each one, then given something more challenging.
An adapted curriculum is not a privilege
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