What is the Purpose of Accommodations and Modifications?
A common topic in education is accommodations vs modifications: What’s the difference? Accommodations and modifications are both different types of support in education designed to help students be successful. Many teachers use the terms interchangeably since they are both intended to support students, however this is incorrect. There are major differences between accommodations and modifications in education, and it’s important for both educators and parents to understand the differences and when each should be implemented.
Who Requires Accommodations or Modifications?
All students, whether enrolled in general education or special education classes, may require accommodations and/or modifications throughout their schooling. Accommodations and modifications can be applied individually or to an entire class. However, most of the time, accommodations and modifications are referred to when discussing an individual student rather than a group or class.
Accommodations and modifications are most often brought up in the context of special education since students who have IEPs have accommodations and/or modifications explicitly laid out in their Individualized Education Programs.
Students who are having trouble with accessing or learning the content and curriculum may require either accommodations or modifications in order to be successful in the classroom. Most of the time, students with disabilities will require accommodations and/or modifications, while students without disabilities might only require accommodations. The implementation of an accommodation or modification for a student without an IEP would be at the discretion of the teacher. The implementation of accommodations or modifications for a student with an IEP is decided by the IEP team, and the school district is legally required to implement them as stated in the student’s legally-binding IEP document.
What’s the Difference? Accommodations vs Modifications
Accommodation examples for this video: the teacher reads aloud the text as it appears on the screen, or the teacher pauses the video every once in a while to rephrase the information that has been presented so far.
Modification examples for this video: the teacher only plays the clips about accommodations for one of the students while the rest of the students watch the entire video; the class takes a quiz on both accommodations and modifications while that one student only takes a quiz on accommodations.
Accommodations
Accommodations are changes made to the way instruction is delivered or to the way curriculum is accessed by the student. What the student is learning is not changing at all, but how the student is learning it is changed. This does not mean that the teacher is making the content “easier”. It means that the instructor is making the content easier to understand for that particular student – by accommodating how the instruction is delivered.
Accommodations could be as small as allowing a student without an IEP or 504 plan, and who wears glasses, to sit closer to the board in order to see better (allowing them to better access the content for their needs). Accommodations could also be more significant, such as allowing a student with a 504 plan who has anxiety to have more time on a test than their peers.
A teacher could implement accommodations for the entire class, such as handing out notes for the lecture rather than requiring students to write their own notes, or reading the written instructions of a quiz aloud to the students while they follow along. Accommodations are actually quite common in both general education and special education rooms since many teachers aim to be engaging and to individualize instruction. Good instruction is accessible for all students.
Modifications
Modifications are changes made to the content or curriculum that the student is expected to learn. What the student is learning is changed.
Modifications are more severe than accommodations because modifications change the content of the lesson or curriculum. As noted by Understood, “Kids who receive modifications are not expected to learn the same material as their classmates” (The Difference Between Accommodations and Modifications).
Modifications are common for students with moderate to severe disabilities. If a student with severe disabilities who is enrolled in a special day class participated in inclusion by attending a general education science class and was not expected to complete any homework assignments that their neurotypical peers are assigned, then that would mean that that student is receiving a modification to the science class.
Examples of Accommodations vs Modifications in Practice
Examples of Accommodations
- Preferential seating
- Sitting closer to the board for vision purposes
- Sitting closer to the teacher for attention/behavior needs
- Flexible seating
- Audio books
- Listening to the text rather than reading
- Visual cues or supports
- Supplemental supports in addition to written text
- Visuals in place of written text
- Audio amplification devices
- Microphones for the teacher to wear to project their voice
- Microphones for the teacher to wear that is connected to an earpiece the student wears
- Understanding checks
- Paraphrasing information to check for understanding
- Repeat directions and information
- Braille
- Have instructions read aloud rather than the student reading them
- Human reader
- Magnification devices
- Large print
- Deadline extensions
- Focused notes or outlines
- Notetaker
- Delivery of instruction in a variety of formats
- Speech-to-text devices
- Text-to-speech devices
- Chunking material
- Graphic organizers or visual organizers
- Reduce background noise or distractions
- Extended time
- Multiple or frequent breaks
- Access to sensory objects such as fidgets
- Waiting-time (student response time)
Examples of Modifications
- Take-home tests
- Open-book or open-note tests
- Different test questions than peers
- Alternative projects
- Grade corrected work
- Focus on mastery of functional concepts
- Give page numbers or other locators to help students find answers
- Books/text at a lower reading level that doesn’t cover all of the original content
- Grading on progress or effort rather than correctness
- Shortened assignments aimed at mastery of concepts
- Pass/Fail or other alternative grading system
- No homework or simplified/shortened homework assignments
Summary: Accommodations vs Modifications
Accommodations change how the student learns what the rest of the class is also learning, while modifications change what the student is learning, typically meaning less material or less complex content than the rest of the class.
Remember, with modifications, you are modifying what the student learns, and with accommodations, you are accommodating what they need in order to learn alongside their peers.
For students with a disability and who receive special education services, accommodations, modifications, and other supports are clearly laid out in the student’s IEP document. If the accommodations or modifications outlined in an IEP are not being implemented, the district is not in compliance with the legally-binding document.