Preparing for the SAT with Learning Disabilities
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So you have a learning disability,
But you still want to kick butt on the SAT. The good news is you are almost certainly capable of getting a great score! While there are some people for whom the SAT just isn’t a good fit, I have helped a wide variety of learners reach their score goals. The bad news is that to get there you’re probably going to have to work harder and smarter than most of your peers. This post will discuss securing test accommodations from the College Board, and then give specific accommodations advice and a learning plan overview for a few common types of learning disabilities: ADHD, dyslexia/dyscalculia, and sensory disorders.
NOTE: The College Board does not consider Test Anxiety to be a learning disorder requiring accommodations. To learn more about managing anxiety, click here.
securing accommodations
Getting proper accommodations for taking a test through the College Board is a lengthy and complicated process. The good news is the College Board actually has plenty of clear and helpful information on their website. In particular, I think these links are a good place to start: https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/
https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/tips-faqs
https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/documentation-guidelines/learning-disorders
https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/reasons-work-with-school
https://accommodations.collegeboard.org/documentation-guidelines/accommodations-documentation
My most important tips are as follows:
Get started early. — The accommodations process can take a lot of time. Just registering for a test requires seven weeks of processing, and that processing won’t start until you have all your forms right. You can find a calendar of registration deadlines here.
If you think you have a learning disorder but you don’t have a professional diagnosis, start ASAP on getting evaluated. — You’ll need extensive documentation from a psychologist or state-certified learning specialist, and the evaluation process can be lengthy.
Work through your guidance counselor. — They have certainly been through the accommodations process before, and have easier access to the College Board’s approval systems. You don’t need to handle the bureaucracy alone.
Ask very specifically for what you want — given no particular requests, the College Board’s default accommodation is 1.5x time. But this isn’t a great fit for everyone! There is a long list of available accommodations here. Even if what you want isn’t listed, the College Board is very reasonable when it comes to requests. Be direct, listen to the advice of your guidance counselor and learning specialist, and don’t be afraid of over-asking. I provide some general tips on what works best with certain disabilities below, but every student is different!
ADHD
The biggest issue with the SAT for a student with ADHD isn’t usually taking the test itself. I have ADHD myself, and I got a perfect score! The main struggle with ADHD is setting up and sticking to a long-term plan to prepare for the test. ADHD has detrimental effects on executive functioning, which is our brain’s capability to manage time, organize, plan ahead, and remember details. I consider helping ADHD students prepare a specialty of mine, and I will be writing a lengthier blog post on it in the future, but for now here are my main tips:
Make sure your long-term goals are clear and specific, but also set up a system of immediate positive feedback. — I cover setting long-term goals here, and it is still very important to get a clear and specific idea of how a higher SAT score will be put to work direct benefiting you. But with ADHD, the long-term planning along often just doesn’t work well as a sole motivator. You want to set up a system where you are getting a positive reward as soon as you accomplish an SAT-related task. Put simply, if you’re a teen reading this, ask your parents to bribe you to study. If you’re a parent or guardian reading this, bribe your kids. It works! At first, the reward system can be as simple as “sit still for 30 minutes and do some SAT study, and you get $10”. Other rewards can work too, but cash is usually my go-to. As you get more comfortable with a set routine, rewards can shift to tie more to performance, longer study times, etc., but the most important key is that the reward is given as soon as the intended behavior is completed. “Do a thing, get a thing” is pretty much a foundation of the field of behavioral psychology [1], and there’s no reason not to use it when it comes to SAT prep. (Note: if you’re reading this and you or your student don’t have ADHD, bribes still work! They may not be as crucial, but it’s worth a shot to try to set up an immediate positive reinforcement system. Parents love it when their kids do SAT work.)
Build an SAT study schedule into an already-existing schedule — This works best as a collaboration between parents/guardians and students. It’s hard to say “I am going to study the SAT for 30 minutes a night.” and follow through with it. It is much easier to say “I am going to study the SAT for 30 minutes right after dinner every night”, or “right before I get ready for bed”, or “during my study hall” because those are schedules that already exist as habits. Put your study plan down on paper, and make a clear agreement with the family that you are to have no other worries or responsibilities during this time. If fully concentrating for the length of your scheduled time is too difficult, that’s OK, especially early on. The most important thing is showing up, opening your book, and not using that time for anything else. Leave your phone in another room, if necessary. As the habit is established, you’ll find it is easier to get in “study mode”.
Put extra focus into building up lengthier practice times. — The SAT is a little over 3 hours long. ADHD makes it hard to focus for long periods of time. For this reason, an emphasis should be put on steadily increasing your practice time as well as taking full-length practice tests. Attention is a skill that can be improved just like any other: by doing it repeatedly.
Accommodations Advice
Many ADHD students are given 1.5x time by the College Board. I’m ambivalent about this at best. You don’t need more time to get things right. You need help focusing during the time you have. For this reason, I find the most helpful accommodation for students with ADHD is to test in isolation, in your own room or with a small group, on a school day. Not being in a classroom with 30 other kids greatly reduces distraction. The College Board likes to bundle this accommodation with the 1.5x time. Another helpful accommodation, if you can get it, is to take the test across two days. This is usually attached to the SAT’s 2x time accommodation, which is harder to get, but the opportunity to break the test up into chunks can be very helpful.
Specific Learning Disorder in reading/mathematics (dyslexia and dyscalculia)
The biggest key to working with dyslexia and dyscalculia on the SAT is to learn how to use your extended time to pinpoint the most important parts of the text/math to understand and manage your “blind spots”. Having one of these learning disorders doesn’t mean you can’t understand what’s on the page. It just means that you need to take your time with it. Slow down. I plan on doing a lengthier blog post in the future with specific details and habits that I’ve found success with, but for now my advice is as follows:
On the reading, practice finding the key words to the question, locating the relevant lines, and reading the answer choices carefully. Use your pencil to help you. It can also help to read aloud. On math, follow each line of your work carefully to make sure nothing is getting misplaced, and make sure your writing habits are very well established. It may sound strange, but for both dyslexia and dyscalculia you need think consciously about where your eyes are moving and what your pencil is doing. In addition, just like you need extra time on test day, you should plan to put in 50% more time to your study sessions. I’ve had plenty of students with dyslexia, and some with dyscalculia, and once they manage to learn to manage their time right their scores tend to come out just fine.
Accommodations Advice
The most important accommodation by far here is extra time. If you don’t have 1.5x time on the SAT, you just flat won’t be able to get through the test. For students with dyscalculia, access to a 4-function calculator on the no-calculator section is often helpful.
sensory processing disorders
To be honest, this is where I can give the least specific advice, because the impact of sensory processing disorders (most commonly audio/visual) varies widely from student to student. The most important thing is to figure out specifically what your accommodations are going to be, and then always practice in an environment as close as possible to those accommodations. The best SAT practice comes from doing problems in the same way you’ll do them on test day. If that means you need to download all your practice tests as PDFs and then blow up the font size as large as possible, then do that. If you need a text-to-speech reader, set that up. If you need to take the test in an isolated room, then practice in an isolation room. The College Board helpfully provides modified versions of their practice tests here. If that doesn’t cut it, feel free to ask for help from your family or guidance counselor or very helpful tutor!
Accommodations Advice
Again, accommodations vary widely with what your specific processing issues are. To find out what is best for you, consult with the people who set up your IEP or 504 plan (usually your psychologist/learning specialist and your guidance counselor). Make sure you let the College Board know specifically what you want, and they should follow through.