[nabs-l] the test accomodations

Sun Apr 28 01:33:06 UTC 2013

Kaiti,
  I'm comfortable either way, honestly.  I sometimes like the
flexibility that comes with using a reader; when I'm using jaws in the
"distraction-free" room provided by my university, I have to depend on
the technology other people have set up and I'm limited to taking a
test in that one specific place.  Using readers (especially when they
happen to be teaching aids for my professors) means that we can take
the test in the testing center, the disability resource center, the
professor's office, a quiet alcove in the library, you get the point.
That way I'm not stuck trying to find a time that I have free where
the disability testing room is also open.
  I've also taken some classes that rely heavily on graphics, not just
graphs.  When my biology exam asks me to "identify the phase of
mitosis shown in the illustration below", you'd better dang well
believe that I want someone there to explain the picture to me.  I've
found my disability office prefers that to embossing the diagrams
tactily; I've found that, nineteen times out of twenty, having someone
describe the pictures to me works about as well as spending a few
minutes examining the tactile graph.  Sometimes I actually like it
better because I can ask the person the questions I need to for me to
understand the dang thing without having to spend all that extra time
filtering out extraneous parts of the picture.  If you haven't had a
class like this in college, you almost certainly will at some point.
  Basically, I like using readers for multiple choice/fill in the
blank/matching type things.  I've also used scribes for the classes in
which I depended on my good old perkins brailler; Deductive Logic
comes to mind because of all the bizarre diagrams and tables which I
didn't know how to render any other way.  (for those classes, I would
complete the work on my brailler and then dictate my finished product
to the scribe when I was all done.)  I use jaws and microsoft word (or
word pad, or note pad, or HJ pad, or anything which lets me write),
for free response essays.  Sometimes this has meant that I've had a
reader fill out the multiple choice section of a test with me and then
let them read or study or do whatever while I wrote my essay with
jaws.  They've never seemed to mind.
  Best,
Kirt

On 4/27/13, Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com> wrote:
> Ashley and all,
>
> For finals that I schedule through disability services I get the
> standard accomodations of a computer with Jaws so I can write my
> answers, up to double time to complete the exam if needed, and a
> distraction-reduced environment (although that's automatic for
> everyone who schedules through the ds office and not something I
> specifically get).  Unfortunately I can't really help with the reader
> thing, as I have never really been in the habit of doing tests orally,
> but hopefully this will answer some of your questions or help a
> little.  I feel like these accomodations are pretty fair and suit my
> needs well.
>
> Just curious, under what conditions do you all use readers?  I've used
> Jaws on tests forever and really have never had a need to do it any
> other way, except in high school occasionally my aid would describe
> things on graphs but that's about it and I don't even have to deal
> with that now in college stats.  Just wondering why you would choose
> to use a reader; Helga's explanation makes sense, but for those of us
> who are capable of using the technology I don't get why you would
> bring someone else into the picture.  I've heard horror stories about
> people who did this and had to retake entire tests because the reader
> messed up a bunch of times, so I guess I'm not understanding the risk
> or even in the best scenario how it would be necessary if you have the
> skills to use Jaws and a computer.  Any thoughts are appreciated.
>
> On 4/27/13, Helga <helga.schreiber at hotmail.com> wrote:
>> Hi Ashley, this is Helga. I know what you mean when you don't receive the
>> help you need for testing. I'm also in my finals right now as well. In
>> order
>> for me to do my tests my disability adviser's assistant read me and
>> scribe
>> the test for me. She was very competent in reading, but sometimes I ask
>> her
>> if she could repeat the questions again, and she did it. The reason I did
>> that is because my first Language is not English even though I speak it.
>> Math was one of the hardest test to do with a scribe because sometimes it
>> took me a while to tell her where to write the numbers in the test. I'm
>> actually blind and I use JAWS, but I didn't really use it for testing
>> yet.
>> By the way, how does it work? Have you talk to your professors about
>> this?
>> Also, I just wanted to tell you that for this semester my professors are
>> the
>> ones who read and write the answers of the questions of the tests for me.
>> By
>> the way, what classes are you taking right now that you are require to
>> take
>> finals exams? I'm just wondering. By the way, do you have any contact
>> number
>> where I can contact you in order to answer your questions in more detail,
>> or
>> email address? Thank you so much. God bless!!
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Ashley Bramlett
>> Sent: Saturday, April 27, 2013 1:21 PM
>> To: National Association of Blind Students mailing list
>> Subject: [nabs-l] the test accomodations
>>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> As finals approach, I wanted to know what test accomodations you get. Do
>> you
>> feel they are adaquate and meet your needs?
>> If you need a reader and person to scribe your answers on a scantron, how
>> are they? Are they competent readers?
>>
>> I’m going through a discriminatory situation now. Most my readers were
>> incompetent but I got around that by asking them to speak slower and
>> repeat
>> things; I mean they could not speak all that clearly and read fast and
>> spoke
>> to the paper not articulately to me. Many exams I took with jaws to avoid
>> this; I feel this way is slower for me and a reader can directly mark my
>> answers on a scantron as well as go back to questions I missed. If I need
>> a
>> reader scribe I should be given a competent reader.
>>
>> I’ll tell more about this specific test issue in another message.
>>
>> Look forward to seeing your responses.
>>
>> Ashley
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>
>
> --
> Kaiti
>
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