Autistic students who are gestalt language processors (GLP - aka non-verbal) will face significant difficulties demonstrating their abilities on the SAT exam. Gestalt processing involves understanding language in a holistic, conceptual way rather than in a detail-focused, sequential manner. The highly verbal SAT rewards, even prefers detail-oriented thinking (more on that below), so the language utilization of GLPs will go unsupported. Additionally, the timed sections, noisy environment, and strict protocols of the SAT will increase anxiety and sensory overload. The high-pressure test conditions make it harder for us to process questions and formulate responses. So why do it?
DISCLAIMER: Opinions herein are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of my employers (past / present / future) or anyone else but me.
I bring this up today because it’s the beginning of “testing season” here in the US. I recently attended a training session that will enable me to be a Proctor for the PSAT test, a sort of pre-test to the SAT. During the session, I found out some alarming things that brought me to write this article and share with you. Hopefully you’re sitting down. Here, I’ll dive into the history of the SAT and what it was / is designed to do. I’ll also speak to the company that runs it and their absolutely horrible accommodations policies. At the end, I’ll provide a framework for requesting accommodations of them, should you decide that you want your students to sit for these exams. Here we go.
The History of the SAT
The SAT has its origins in early intelligence testing that arose in the early 20th century, particularly with the US Army’s Alpha and Beta tests that were developed during World War I to assess military recruits. These tests were adapted from IQ tests designed by psychologists like Alfred Binet of France, who originally developed his tests to identify struggling students so special services could be offered.
In the United States, the eugenicist Lewis Terman adapted the Simon Binet Intelligence Test into English and normed it on large sample of American kids. But his reasons for testing children were very different from what Binet wanted. Binet hoped his test would help all children get the best education for them. Terman, on the other hand, said the main goal of the test, now called the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scales, was to "stop feeble-minded people from having kids and eliminate a lot of crime, poverty, and ineffective workers" (source). As an aside, the Stanford part of the name comes from Terman’s association with Stanford University, a hotbed of eugenics activities at the time. Along with David Starr Jordan, his collaborator on the Intelligence Scales, Terman was a member of the Human Betterment Foundation, which promoted forced sterilizations in California based on eugenics principles
Some key points about the early IQ tests:
They were designed to identify innate, fixed intelligence rather than acquired knowledge. This concept of intelligence favored educated, affluent test takers.
The tests often contained culturally biased questions testing familiarity with vocabulary, concepts, and trivia more known to white upper- and middle-class Americans.
Test creators, like the eugenicist Carl Brigham, openly expressed racist views. Brigham adapted the Army tests noted above into the original SAT, believing intelligence was inherited and that data showed African Americans were intellectually inferior to whites.
The tests were criticized at the time for giving an advantage to those with access to education and cultural capital. African American scores were disproportionately low, but critics said this reflected systemic barriers and cultural bias in the tests rather than innate ability.
So a muted view of the SAT would say that it grew out of the early IQ testing movement. The IQ testing movement was rooted in eugenics (aka: race-science) that held that intelligence was genetic, fixed, and could be compared across racial groups. Critics, myself included, say the SAT continues to reflect the biases of these early tests.
The College Board
The College Board was started in 1900 by a group consisting of mostly Northeast colleges. Their stated goal was to make applying to college easier by standardizing admissions requirements across schools. Their underlying goal, as we’ll see in a moment, was to provide a “scientific basis” for excluding entire groups of applicants. But, we’ll get to that later.
In 1926, the College Board created the Scholastic Aptitude Test, or SAT. The test, they said at the time, was meant to help colleges evaluate students from different schools on common academic skills. The SAT was first given to over 8,000 students that year.
As noted above, the SAT was designed by Carl Brigham. Again, he based it on IQ tests given to Army recruits in World War I. A firm scientific-racist, Brigham believed these tests showed differences in intelligence between races and social classes. He thought the SAT could confirm these beliefs.
By the 1930s and 40s, more colleges adopted the SAT as part of admissions. The so-called elite colleges especially used it to identify “gifted” applicants. In the 1950s and 60s, SAT use grew more when it was used for National Merit Scholarships (which is where I come in with the PSAT, but more on that later). But people increasingly criticized the SAT for being racially, economically, and gender biased.
Who made up the College Board?
The original group of colleges that founded the College Board and commissioned the SAT included:
These were considered some of the most prestigious universities in the United States in the early 20th century. At the time, they served primarily white male students from affluent backgrounds.
Again, the College Board was ostensibly created with the goal of streamlining and standardizing admissions requirements for these elite schools. They wanted a common set of requirements for students from different states or backgrounds applying to the colleges. This group believed having standardized testing would help identify the most academically outstanding students from across the nation to admit to their institutions. The SAT was also seen as a way to assess preparedness for college studies.
The Board’s Board
Of the early College Board members and leaders, these three had notable ties or expressed views related to eugenics:
Abbott Lawrence Lowell - As president of Harvard, Lowell advocated for quotas to limit Jewish students, in line with common eugenicist ideas at the time of Jews being racially inferior.
Nicholas Murray Butler - A president of Columbia. As a prominent education reform advocate, Butler expressed some eugenic views on inherited intelligence. He believed in improving human breeding by increasing birth rates of the intelligent.
Carl Brigham - The aforementioned psychologist who adapted the Army IQ tests into the original SAT exam. Brigham was an ardent believer in eugenics and argued the SAT could be used to prove the racial superiority and intellectual dominance of white Americans.
Beyond these three, support for eugenics and its racist ideologies was relatively widespread among early 20th century intellectuals and elite academia in the US.
Rotten Fruit from the Poisoned Tree
The SAT exam, with its roots in the discredited eugenics movement and its racist, unscientific theories around inherited intelligence, needs to go. Eugenics provided the poisoned soil from which the tree of modern standardized testing grew. The test's creator, Carl Brigham, adapted early SAT questions from IQ tests designed specifically to demonstrate the alleged intellectual superiority of white Americans over minorities. This original sin of birth means that whilst the SAT has been modified over the decades, it retains the imprint of its flawed origins. Critics contend that the test continues to reflect cultural biases and concepts of aptitude popularized by proponents of eugenics in the early 20th century. They argue that the SAT acts as a barrier to educational access for minority groups, much as eugenicists had intended with their racially-motivated intelligence testing schemes. Rather than an objective measure of ability, the SAT represents fruit from a tree planted firmly in the tainted ground of pseudoscience and racial prejudice. Its ongoing use propagates the misconceptions and harmful impacts originating in that dark era of American history.
Furthermore, the SAT’s architect, Brigham, believed standardized testing could be used to uphold racial and class hierarchies. By providing an ostensibly merit-based barrier, the SAT allowed universities to limit admissions of Jewish, Black, immigrant, disabled, and poor students under the guise of academic selectivity rather than outright bigotry. In this way, the SAT served its purpose: to provide a scientific veneer for maintaining Ivy League colleges and other institutions as exclusive bastions of the WASP establishment.
Autism and the SAT
The stage being firmly set, we’ll move back into the present.
As I was sitting through the training, we came to the part about accommodations. According to the College Board (source), “Students must have documentation of their disability, such as a current psychoeducational evaluation or a report from a doctor. The type of documentation needed will depend on the disability and the accommodations being requested.”
Fair enough. If you’re autistic and a student in a US public school, you likely have an IEP that would necessarily include a psychoeducational evaluation. The school psychologist, however, will likely not have included the things in that report that the College Board wants to see in order to provide the requested accommodations.
Wait, what?
“To receive accommodations for College Board exams, students with autism spectrum disorders must make a request to College Board’s Services for Students with Disabilities (SSD)—even if they have an Individualized Education Plan (IEP), a 504 plan, or already receive those accommodations for school or state tests.” (source)
All requests should, I would say must meet seven key criteria. Here’s their criteria (source)
The diagnosis should be clearly stated. The diagnosis should be made by someone with appropriate professional credentials, should be specific, and should reference the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5 or whichever edition was current at the time of diagnosis). These DSM-IV diagnoses are acceptable if the student received a well-established diagnosis prior to DSM-5:
Autistic disorder
Asperger’s disorder
Pervasive developmental disorder not otherwise specified
All information should be current. Because disabilities change over time, documentation must be up to date. Academic testing should be no more than five years old. Cognitive testing may be older than five years, but testing performed before third grade may not provide a valid indication of the student’s current ability. Medical or psychiatric testing should have a current update, completed within the last year.
History should be presented. Provide relevant educational, developmental, and medical history in support of the diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder and the functional limitation. Information about the student’s history of receiving school accommodations and current use of accommodations helps College Board understand the nature and severity of the student’s disability and the need for accommodations. Teacher observations are often helpful as well; they may be recorded on the Teacher Survey Form.
The diagnosis should be supported by testing. A medical note is usually not sufficient to support the need for accommodations. Documentation should demonstrate that a comprehensive assessment was conducted and include:
A summary of current symptomatology, treatment, and ongoing needs.
A narrative summary of evaluation results with clear evidence of clinically significant impairment in an academic setting.
Comprehensive cognitive and academic testing (particularly when requesting extended time) such as those found on our page of commonly used diagnostic tests.
Functional limitations should be described. Explain how autism spectrum disorder currently impacts the student’s academic functioning and ability to participate in College Board exams. Functional limitation can be documented in a variety of ways:
Psychoeducational evaluations, including standardized test scores and narrative. Use national norms to support both the diagnosis and functional limitation.
Summary of the student's developmental, educational, and/or psychiatric history.
Descriptive information from the school, such as teacher observations, which can be recorded on the Teacher Survey Form.
Recommended accommodations should be justified. Provide a detailed rationale for requested accommodations, focusing on:
The connection between the student’s diagnosed disability and the requested accommodations.
Current academic needs of the student, including functional impairments and use of accommodations in school.
A detailed description of the student’s current symptoms, including frequency, duration, and intensity.
For example, students requesting extended time should document difficulty taking timed tests and include standardized scores on timed and untimed or extended time tests. See documentation guidelines for frequently requested accommodations for requirements specific to extended time, breaks, reading and seeing accommodations, recording responses, use of a four-function calculator, and assistive technology.
Evaluators' professional credentials should be listed. To ensure valid testing and diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder, evaluators must be licensed by the state in which they practice.
Explaining all of this in relation to the reality of autism in an academic setting in the US
The diagnosis should be clearly stated. Most autistic students in the US DO NOT have a formal diagnosis of autism, they have an eligibility for special education services given by their school’s special education team. The team will necessarily include a School Psychologist, who does produce a psychoeducational report, but this person is not a doctor and thus can not offer a diagnosis. This is the first pitfall. It’s number one on their list likely because most will be applications will be eliminated at this stage … and they don’t have to bother reading on. Such is capitalism, where profit is squeezed from every opportunity and a penny saved is a penny earned.
All information should be current. If you’ve managed the first hurdle, here’s the second. Let’s say you are diagnosed, like me. I was diagnosed in 2012. I’m still autistic after all these years. But my diagnosis, even though it’s fully documented, does not meet their threshold. Were I a student, I would have to go through the time and expense of getting a brand new evaluation. Most don’t. This pitfall, however, certainly favours the privileged few who can overcome it. It certainly disadvantages the bulk of the autistic community.
History should be presented. Here’s the next hurdle. “Information about the student’s history of receiving school accommodations and current use of accommodations helps College Board understand the nature and severity of the student’s disability and the need for accommodations.” Here’s where Big Test got me. Pearson used this to deny my request for accommodations on the CSET test because I had taken and passed the CBEST test without accommodations. Here, they want a full history from every teacher and support staff that speaks specifically to the requested accommodation and how the student not only requires it but has a very specific history of receiving and benefiting from it. In this step, every teacher - past and current - will need to fill out the survey linked above. How easy will that be for you to organize. But, no complete and thorough history, no accommodations.
The diagnosis should be supported by testing. For an IEP, testing (like the Woodcock Johnson) is only done once every three years. But remember #2, the data needs to be current. In this part of the request, the College Board wants to know if the student received the accommodations you’re requesting of them during the tests. They’ll want to know if the symptoms are valid, meaning that they present every time one tests.
Functional limitations should be described. If you’ve made it this far, be prepared to get knocked out here. “Explain how autism spectrum disorder currently impacts the student’s academic functioning and ability to participate in College Board exams.” It doesn’t matter if an autistic students’ IEP has testing accommodations listed, all do. The IEP lists the tests by name and the specific accommodations for that test. Here’s the problem. In my District, there is no function in the software that we use that allows me to specify accommodations for the College Board exams. None. The psychoeducational report may include information relative to this, but I highly doubt it. At an IEP meeting, if parents have gotten this far in having all the requested information, they will want to have the Psychologist check the whole IEP to see if this specific accommodation language is present relative to the accommodation that will be needed … and if it’s not there … have the Psychologist put it in their report.
Recommended accommodations should be justified. Made it this far? Congrats. Here’s where your heart sinks. In 2022, the DSM-5-TR (Text Revision) was released, which included some updates to the ASD criteria, though the core criteria remained largely the same. Specifically for the sensory aspects, the DSM-5-TR criteria state:
"B. Restricted, repetitive patterns of behavior, interests, or activities, as manifested by at least two of the following, currently or by history:Stereotyped or repetitive motor movements, use of objects, or speech.
Insistence on sameness, inflexible adherence to routines, or ritualized patterns of verbal or nonverbal behavior.
Highly restricted, fixated interests that are abnormal in intensity or focus.
Hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment."
So in the DSM-5-TR, the sensory criteria of "hyper- or hyporeactivity to sensory input or unusual interests in sensory aspects of the environment" remains the same as it was in DSM-5. The key point is that both DSM-5 and DSM-5-TR specifically include sensory differences as part of the diagnostic criteria for autism spectrum disorder.
BUT
There is NO accommodation for those of us that rely upon anything to moderate sensory inputs. NONE. To that point, I was sitting in a training room with a complex noise environment … WEARING MY LOOPS … whilst being instructed that student use of headphone, earplugs, or any other such item is strictly prohibited. Some of my original diagnoses in 2012 were Sensory Processing Disorder and Sensory Integration Disorder, as I note in my book. How the (insert your favourite expletive here) would I manage three hours in such an environment without my Loops? Better yet, how will students feel when their teacher is sitting in the front … WEARING THEIR LOOPS … telling them that they cant? WTF!?Evaluators' professional credentials should be listed. This one is easy. It’s always done. But getting to this point is next to impossible … and that, my friends, is the point.
What to do about it.
Well, first of all, the PSAT and SAT are not mandatory. Yes, most colleges want the results of standardized tests during the admission process, but some are moving away from that practice. Locally, in 2020 the University of California system voted to permanently drop SAT/ACT requirements. The University of Oregon dropped it a year later. Also, Harvard, Yale, and the University of Chicago no longer require it. More are considering making it an optional submission, as opposed to a requirement. If community college is in your student’s plan, then you don’t need it at all.
You can choose to opt-out. In my district, this is done with the PSAT/NMSQT Parental Exception Waiver. The kicker here is that parents must not only know to do this, do it on time, and understand that the District does not want them to do it. Here, the District has paid for every single student to take the PSAT/NMSQT … in advance. So by opting out, parents are “costing the District money.” But, if you can’t get the accommodations, this is your only escape from the nightmare that high-stakes standardized testing can be.
Why pre-pay for the testing?
During the 2022–2023 school year, LAUSD served 565,479 students - 39.3% of which are of PSAT testing age (source). If the retail price to sit for the test is $18, with a $4 charge per “test package,” then the College Board made $222,233.25 off the District last year. The District represents a significant source of revenue for them. If you consider that there are over 13,000 school districts in the US … we’re starting to talk real numbers. Thus, the College Board’s sales reps would want to convince districts around the country to pre-pay, locking in a customer and guaranteeing their revenue stream. In fact, they had over $1.2b in revenue in 2020 (source). With a profit margin of about 14%, this represents a profit of 168 million.
Considering that the College Board has a near lock on the market (AP tests, PSAT, SAT, etc.), the way to grow profits in a capitalist economy where one is already at the oligarch stage is through a process known as “regulatory capture.” In regulatory capture, the oligarch (person or corporation) inserts people into the lives of elected officials to wield influence. In most countries, this is called corruption. Here, it’s called lobbying. Here, lobbyists often write the legislation that elected officials vote on and pass. Though I’m not saying that my employer’s governing board is corrupt, what I am saying is that once a capitalist enterprise such as the College Board gets to this phase of growth, regulatory capture is a way of increasing its profits. Once it secures this level of capture, we have fascism … or the merger of the state and enterprise. The capitalist corporation then uses the state’s power to secure its oligarchy.
Remember, in the game Monopoly, the game ends when only one player has all the money and no one else can do anything. The game resets. The massive transfer of wealth that has occurred in the US since 2020 - wealth transferred upward - has been staggering. Facing rising prices in everything, and stagnant wages, do you think parents would opt-in to paying a private capitalist corporation a single penny if they didn’t have to? Of course not. So, in securing a system where the customer is not the poor, struggling family but the state-funded school district, the oligarch assures its revenue streams. Who wins? Them, of course.
Ostensibly, the College Board is a “non-profit” corporation. But, in the US, so-called non-profits can profit handsomely as long as they do something the “benefits” the public. But this particular corporation has some very large expenses that don’t seem justified. For example, thanks to their hefty profits, the President of the College Board, Jeremy Singer, makes over $1 million dollars a year, the CEO, David Coleman, makes over $2.5 million dollars per year, whilst several of its executives make $300,000 – $500,000 a year in salary and benefits (source). Neither the CEO or the President have ever been teachers. They are both from the world of business.
To conclude …
I hope that in presenting this rather long missive on the PSAT, I’ve made my point. If not, here it is again:
The College Board does not care about students, it cares about increasing revenue quarter over quarter and year over year.
The Collage Board makes it almost impossible for you / your child to receive accommodations for their tests.
The College Board, as one of the educational oligarchies, will not hear your pleas or requests. Time, after all, is money.
The only reliable thing you can do to avoid this whole mess is to simply opt-out. Don’t dignify them with your time, talent, or treasure. If you feel like it, you can show up to a school board meeting to vent your frustration, but it will likely be a waste of time.
Thank you, as always, for reading this far. Let me know what you think in the comments below.
Wonderful updating of SAT-test history I have followed and lived with effects of all my life. I am sort of the exception that proves the rule of what you wrote:
70 years ago I was very lucky having academic parents who read to and with me and I became a very fast gestalt reader before starting kindergarten.* Later in school I could look at a page from a SAT-type test as a whole and immediately sense the two or three mostly likely correct answers without reading them word by word. That increased the odds of doing well under time pressure even when I was guessing on many items. I hope to comment more after I read your article carefully, but for now I just want to say that I think performance on those kind of tests is very determined by social class. Many other things come in of course, but having parents who are teachers gives an advantage beyond what wealth level provides. The most dramatic to me demonstration of this is Shirley Brice Heath's work summarized in this article:
What No Bedtime Story Means: Narrative Skills at Home and School
Author(s): Shirley Brice Heath
Source: Language in Society, Vol. 11, No. 1 (Apr., 1982), pp. 49-76
Published by: Cambridge University Press
You are probably familiar with her work but I rarely see it referenced anywhere.
* needless to say 40 years were to go by before I had any idea I was ADD/autistic.