Saffron Murphy-Mann on practical access to exams for people who rely on Augmentative and Alternative Communication (AAC).
AAC users may struggle with traditional exams due to the inaccessible layout, the unrealistic timetables, the uncertainty of school staff as to what adjustments they can ask for and how to achieve the adjustments the AAC user needs and physically needs during a stressful period.
In 2018, the AAC Exams Access Working Group was formed to share experience of AAC users who had studied for an exam, and any reasonable adjustments that had been made for them to access the exam. The group included teachers, AAC specialists, AAC users, parents and carers and an educational software developer. They produced a guidance document, ‘Exams Access Guidance for Young People Who Rely Upon AAC’, which is available on Cornwall Council’s website at the link below.
The members of the group shared resources including Phonics Screening adapted for AAC users and bespoke grids which have been accepted by exam boards; they also shared software that has been accepted by exam boards under normal ways of working and case studies of reasonable adjustments. The time taken by an AAC user is also significantly longer and there are a number of cases where students have been given 500 or 600% extra time to complete their assessments.
How to approach exam boards
Exam boards may ask for proof of normal ways of working, so it is never too early to start recording a student’s access and physical needs. It is also important to start considering resources that your student may need to access exams, for example specialist software, wordlists and bespoke resources which may be subject specific as well as computer readers, scribes, oral language modification and prompting. If these are used consistently during the student’s education, then you can argue that they can be classed as their normal way of working. Students who rely on AAC are likely to fall into JCQ’s category of substantial needs and the computer system for requesting adjustments will reject any requests outside of the norm, and a discussion will be needed with the exam board. Therefore it is important to get requests for adjustments in early so that there is time for negotiations to take place. The student’s normal way of working is the most powerful justification. This should be the way that the student works in class, during group work, in support lessons, in intervention sessions and in mock exams.
The group is now looking to the future and investigating, in the light of the Teacher Assessed Grades used during the current pandemic, whether an alternative to the traditional exam, such as TAG or coursework, can be used to benefit students who struggle with access and time constraints of traditional exams.
The AAC Exams Access Guidance document can be found at:
https://www.cornwall.gov.uk/media/a1qh2thb/aac-exam-access-guidance.pdf
Author: Saffron Murphy-Mann
Saffron Murphy-Mann
Saffron Murphy-Mann is a specialist AAC teacher and a Trustee of the charity Communication Matters.
www.communicationmatters.org.uk
