On accessible language testing for students with disabilities

The aim of the paper is to discuss the accessibility of language tests, in particular for students who have sensory (deaf) and learning disabilities (LD). The term accessibility refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments so that they ensure equal access for all individuals. Test accessibility is “the extent to which a test and its constituent item set permits the test-taker to demonstrate knowledge of the target construct” (Beddow 2009). Two individuals may have the same language competence, but accessibility issues may preclude one from demonstrating his/her competence. I present some results of a pilot study funded by the Italian Ministry of Education and Research (MIUR), entitled “Interventi per studenti sordi e con DSA all’Università: valutazione delle competenze linguistiche in italiano e in inglese” (Measures for deaf students and students with LD at University: Assessment of language competence in Italian and English), which involved the collaboration of scholars from the Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and the University of Bologna. Our research questions are the following: Do the tests which aim to assess language competence in L1 and L2 really do so in the case of deaf students and students with LD? Or can the negative results be attributed to the format of the tests? Is a common reasonable accommodation such as extended time sufficient to make language proficiency tests accessible?