If schools do not prepare alternate examination papers for students with intellectual disability and arrange them to take the same examination papers as other students, and if these students cannot demonstrate in assessment their knowledge and abilities acquired due to deficits in their ability, schools can provide them with assessment accommodations according to their needs.
Schools should refer to the recommendations of teachers and professionals such as educational psychologists, speech therapists or occupational therapists, and decide on the assessment accommodations during Individual Education Plan meetings. Schools should properly file the records on the assessment accommodations provided, as well as the review on the effectiveness of the accommodations and the needs for support.
Generally speaking, the following assessment accommodations can be considered in order to meet the special educational needs of the students with intellectual disability:
Additional assistance in examination centres, e.g. special seating arrangement, prompting to promote on-task concentration, etc.
Special format of examination papers, e.g. enlarging the entire question papers.
Special arrangements for answering questions, e.g. allowing students to circle the answers of multiple choice questions directly on the examination papers, etc.
There may be individual students with intellectual disability having substantial severity of functional limitations, such as:
Very weak fine motor coordination and control abilities that may cause hand fatigue, extremely slow handwriting speed or low legibility of handwriting
Substantial difficulty in language and communication skills that may inhibit group discussion during oral examinations
Very short attention span and high distractibility that makes it difficult to sustain attention in examinations, especially when sitting for lengthy examinations; or markedly delayed speed of answering, despite frequent prompts
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Substantial difficulty in thinking and information processing that may markedly delay the speed of information retrieval and answering
In order to assist individual students with intellectual disability who have substantial severity of functional limitations to participate in the examination process, schools should refer to the recommendations of teachers and professionals, such as educational psychologists, speech therapists or occupational therapists, and consider assessment accommodations as suggested below during the Individual Education Plan meetings:
Short breaks during examination
Use of computer input instead of writing for answers
Extra time allowance for oral examination preparation
Arrangement for familiar classmates or dummies in oral group discussion
Extra time allowance
As with other students with SEN, for individual students with intellectual disability requiring special arrangements in public examinations, schools must submit an application to the HKEAA.
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Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD)
Students with Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD) are more easily distracted by changes in the environment. They have difficulty in focusing, sustaining attention and handling tasks that demand high concentration. They often act impulsively and easily make careless mistakes. Schools can consider the following accommodations to cater for the special educational needs of these individual students in internal examinations, so as to reflect their true ability and level of competency:
Arrange a seat away from distractions or a quiet setting for examination.
Give prompts to remind the students to pay attention, e.g. the examiner can mildly tap mildly on the desk to remind them to focus on their work.
Remind the students the remaining time at regular intervals during an examination.
For oral examinations, repeat the instructions or questions to the students.
Allow the students to have short supervised breaks for examinations with longer duration.
Remind the students to read the questions and check the answers carefully.
In view of the functional limitations of students with AD/HD that may appear during examinations, schools can consider the arrangements listed above. For special cases with exceptional difficulties sustaining attention and/or moderating activity level, and thus significantly and persistently hamper the speed of working, schools can consider extra time allowance. The school student support team should take into consideration the students’
performance prior to and after extra time allowance is provided, and consult relevant professionals (for example educational psychologists), to ensure that these arrangements will not alter the assessment objectives or constitute an unfair advantage over other students.
In considering the need for special examination arrangement for students with AD/HD, please refer to the flowchart and case illustration.
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Considering the need for special examination arrangement for students with Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder
Case Illustration Case 1:
The student is a Secondary three repeater. He was diagnosed with Attention Deficit/
Hyperactivity Disorder by a psychiatrist when he was in Primary three. With medication, the student is attentive in lessons and during examinations. He is generally able to finish all subjects’ classwork within standard time, but he is reported to work slowly and show difficulty in completing examination papers within standard time in individual subjects. The school tried to provide extra time allowance for the student during examinations. However, the arrangement did not help much to improve the student’s performance in response and the teachers shared the observation with the parents.
After discussing and comparing the student’s examination performance in the current year repeating Secondary three with those in previous year, teachers note that the student is able to work faster and finish the examination papers of the subjects that he is more familiar with within the standard time. His examination results in those subjects are also better. By further examining his examination papers, teachers find that the reason behind his failure in completing some examination papers within standard time is often because he is unable to come up with the answers. The student also reflects to the teachers that he does not have enough time to answer all the questions. Teachers discuss the observation and information with the parents and they agree that it is not necessary to arrange extra time allowance for the student.
Case 2:
The student was diagnosed with Attention Deficit/ Hyperactivity Disorder by a psychiatrist when he was in primary school. His academic results were average all along, but deteriorated significantly after promoting to Secondary four. From teachers’ daily observations, the student has difficulty sustaining his attention and often daydreams in class. He needs more time than his classmates in completing classwork, and is frequently late in submitting homework. Parents share that the student is very slow in completing his assignments, especially the wordy ones. During examinations, the student is often not able to complete the examination papers within standard time. Prompting him to stay on task has been provided but the student is still unable to complete the examination paper within the time limit. When given extended time, the student’s performance seems to be more reflective of his actual ability.
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The educational psychologist further assesses the student. He is observed to often stop working in the middle of the reading comprehension test. Although he is able to obtain test scores comparable to his same-age peers, he needs longer time than average students to complete the test. When he is interviewed after the test, the student admits that he is often inattentive during reading and he needs to reread some of the content of the passage.
Integrating the information above, the student has exceptional difficulty in sustaining attention which significantly and persistently hampers the speed of working. Providing extra time allowance can reduce his functional limitation.
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Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD)
The performance of students with Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD) in examination may be affected by their obstinacy and difficulty to adjust to changes. They may attend to or even obsess with details, to the extent of ignoring the essential parts of things and events. They have difficulties to comprehend events from a global perspective or grasp the big picture. Due to their social and communication problems, their performance or that of other group members may be affected in oral examinations. A number of students with ASD have other functional limitations, such as sensory hypersensitivity to external stimuli, weaknesses in attention control, thinking fluency, planning ability and fine motor coordination and control, which would affect their performance. In internal assessment, schools can make accommodations in accordance with the special educational needs of individual students, so as to reflect their true ability and level of competency:
To address the functional limitations of students with ASD, schools can generally arrange the following assessment accommodations:
Without compromising the assessment criteria, invigilating teachers can provide appropriate assistance to students according to their individual needs:
repeat the instructions to individual students in a simple, direct and clear way
remind students to concentrate on answering
If the rigid behaviour of the students adversely affects their performance, such as pausing at the question which they do not know, or insisting on neat handwriting and repeatedly erasing and rewriting the answers, thus failing to complete the examination papers within the set time limit, the invigilating teachers should guide them with patience.
Under exceptional circumstances, teachers familiar with the students with ASD can be arranged to act as invigilators.
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Provide special arrangement in examination venue, for example, arranging a seat location with less sensory stimulation/ interference or allowing students to take the examination in a separate room
Grant a short supervised break in the course of examination.
If the communication problems or rigid behaviour of a student with ASD is affecting his/her own performance or that of other group members in a group discussion, schools can arrange the student to have the group discussion with familiar classmates or non-candidates.
Provide reasonable accommodations in School-based Assessment (SBA) of the Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education Examination. For example, in the SBA of Liberal Studies, flexibly arrange the frequency of submitting assignments based on the needs of individual students (such as by increasing the frequency so that students can focus on a smaller scope each time); allowing a choice of presenting the project report of the
“Independent Enquiry Study” in either written or non-written forms.
For question papers with cartoons or complicated pictures in Liberal Studies/History/Chinese History, plain text labels/descriptions can be given, describing the layout of the cartoons or complicated pictures in a text format without giving any interpretations or revealing the underlying meaning of these cartoons or pictures, which would otherwise compromise the assessment objectives of the subjects concerned if additional hints are provided.
Individual students with ASD may have relatively more serious functional limitations. When the school has arranged the aforesaid accommodations for a student but the effect is not as expected, the student support team can gather the opinions of the teachers, the student and the parents, as well as make reference to the recommendations from professionals, such as educational psychologists, speech therapists or occupational therapists to consider the assessment accommodations suggested below so as to address the difficulties of the student:
Extra time allowance for answering
Extra time in preparing for oral examination
In considering the need for special examination arrangement for students with ASD, please refer to the flowchart and case illustration.
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For individual students with serious communication difficulties, schools can consider exempting them from taking the whole or part of the oral examination (see Chapter V).
However, schools should continue to arrange learning opportunities for these students.
Schools are advised to arrange the students to take part in the oral examination and daily training, but not collating their results on the report card.
Many students with ASD also have speech problems (especially pragmatic disorders).
Schools may refer to the part on ‘Pragmatic Disorders’ under Speech and Language Impairment below for the related information.
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