The ADA is meant to protect people with disabilities from discrimination at school, work and in daily life. Unfortunately, over the part several years, court rulings have reinterpreted the Act, causing certain rights to be disregarded, including limiting access to testing accommodations for young adults with LD. When these rights were in jeopardy, NCLD worked to protect the rights of individuals with learning disabilities so that under the newly amended law they would have access to appropriate accommodations (in the classroom and the workplace) as would any other individual with a disability. Among other gains, ADAA guarantees young adults with LD access to appropriate accommodations while taking high stakes tests such as the SAT, ACT, high school exit exams and graduate level exams.

The law states that all young adults with LD who are considering going to college have a right to apply for and receive appropriate accommodations for high stake tests. High stakes tests are used to make decisions about critical issues such as graduation with a regular diploma, college acceptance and scholarships. The impact of such testing can be particularly harsh for students who struggle with LD because they may need accommodations to help level the playing field during test taking in order to ably demonstrate what they know.

http://www.interdys.org/NewsAnnouncementsADASignedSept25,2008.htm

text of bill:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d110:SN03406:@@@L&summ2=m&