Effects of an oral testing accommodation on the mathematics performance of secondary students with and without learning disabilities

This study compared the performance of students with and without learning disabilities (LD) on a mathematics test using a standard administration procedure and a read-aloud accommodation. Analyses were conducted on the test scores of 625 middle and high school students (n = 388 with LD) on two equivalent 30-item multiple-choice tests. Whereas mean scores for students both with and without LD were higher in the accommodated condition, students without disabilities benefited significantly more from the accommodation (ES = 0.44) than students with LD (ES = 0.20). In addition, effect sizes from the present study were combined meta-analytically with those of previous studies. Results of the meta-analysis revealed that for elementary students, oral accommodations on a mathematics test yielded greater gains for students with LD than for students without disabilities; for secondary students, the converse was true. Findings of the study are discussed in relation to the question of the validity of an oral accommodation on mathematics tests for students both with and without disabilities.