Infrastructure & Governance

Accessibility in computerized assessments — what's working?

Sophia Liang Verified

Apr 23, 2026

Working on a project to redesign assessment tooling for a public-sector client. Standard accommodations (extended time, screen reader compatibility) are table stakes but feel insufficient. The framework in Book Two suggests the deeper issue is that the assessment design itself encodes neurotypical assumptions. Has anyone here been involved in actually shipping an assessment built around cognitive variation rather than retrofitting accommodations onto a neurotypical-default test?

2 replies

Maya Goldberg Verified

Apr 23, 2026

Yes, in K-12. The honest answer is: very few. The certifying bodies that approve assessments for high-stakes use are extremely conservative, and "validated" almost always means "validated against the historical neurotypical sample." Breaking that loop requires either a new certifying body or sustained pressure on the existing ones.

Aaron Park Verified

Apr 23, 2026

If you're shipping in a regulated context, the path of least resistance is parallel forms — keep the validated test, build a parallel form designed differently, validate them as equivalent, then offer both. It's not the architectural fix the book argues for but it's a wedge.