FAQ - Special Test Accommodations

It is important to make every effort to locate documentation of your academic functioning and difficulties from elementary school onward: diagnostic reports, school report cards and any other documents from your childhood on that attest to and describe difficulties you experienced, for example letters from teacher, summaries of parent-educator meetings, tests and school notebooks.

These documents usually contain important information regarding the nature and cause of your difficulties. Sometimes, without adequate information about your functioning in elementary school, it is impossible to determine whether difficulties are indeed the result of learning disorders or attention deficits. In such cases, special test accommodations cannot be approved.

Our aim is to provide every examinee with the accommodations that they need currently, at the time of registering for the test. Functioning in various areas, such as reading and writing, can change over the years in response to practice, remedial instructions and skill improvement. This is why, in many cases, we are unable to decide which accommodations an examinee needs without a current description of their functioning in relevant areas. The nature of difficulties that arise from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, and how they manifest themselves, also change over time, and a current assessment is needed in order to determine which accommodations are needed.
Nevertheless, we do review applications with old or partial documentation. They are not automatically rejected for not meeting the requirements.

A professional and fair decision regarding special test accommodations must be based primarily on data that reflect functioning over time in a variety of areas related to learning disabilities. A personal conversation, no matter how comprehensive, cannot replace data that has been collected in a professional and consistent manner. Personal meetings are therefore not offered. However, because your personal perspective matters to us, we recommend answering the applicant questionnaire with care. Detailed answers on this questionnaire will help give us a thorough understanding of your functioning and difficulties. If you wish to emphasize and/or clarify certain information, you are welcome to attach a personal letter to your application.

If your doctor is not willing to complete the questionnaire, ask them to write and sign a document that answers all the questions asked in the questionnaire.
Along with this document, you must provide the doctor’s phone number and working hours.

If you cannot locate the person who did your assessment, you may submit your application and documentation without this questionnaire. The professional staff will review your application on the basis of the material you submit. However, in such cases you may be asked to provide missing information and this would incur a fee.

If the full diagnostic report contains all the data requested on the assessor questionnaire, the questionnaire can be waived. Only the assessor can determine whether they need to complete the questionnaire. It is important to remember that only an assessment professional can complete the questionnaire.

Possibly, but not necessarily. Though a diagnostic report contains information that is vital to determining accommodations, more specialized considerations play a role in determining accommodations for the psychometric test. The information about the nature of your difficulty must be understood in the context of psychometric considerations and specific aspects of the test (its nature and purpose, the type of tasks it contains, etc.).

Special accommodations on the psychometric test are determined carefully, with fairness toward the entire examinee population in mind. Scores on the test are relative to the scores of other test takers and we make every effort to establish the correct accommodations, in order to avoid giving an examinee a relative advantage or disadvantage.

Possibly, but not necessarily. The psychometric test differs from the Bagrut in content, format, purpose, and even the types of accommodations available. Therefore, accommodations approved for the Bagrut may be different to those approved for the psychometric.

For example, the Bagrut exams mainly test knowledge, and the speed at which they are answered is not essential for this purpose. Additional time is not likely to affect the accuracy of the measurement or change the meaning of the score obtained.
In contrast, the psychometric test is a tool for predicting academic success and, as such, also involves evaluation of cognitive skills, including the efficiency of cognitive processes. Provision of extra time, therefore, is likely to cause us to test different skills from those we intend to test. Therefore, this accommodation is only approved if functioning is slowed down by a primary disorder (in reading for example) or a physical problem, and not in cases of general slow thinking or information processing.

No. Establishing the existence of ADHD requires a full diagnosis of the issue over the past three years, as is explained in instructions for documentation of ADHD. Computerized tests like TOVA and MOXO are not substitutes for a full evaluation, though they are one consideration among the many that serve for diagnosis.

No. Taking the MATAL assessment is not compulsory. The Special Test Accommodations Unit accepts assessments from all qualified professionals, provided they include the required information as detailed in the assessor questionnaire.

No. We accept assessments from all qualified professionals. We do not specify an organization (or assessor), nor recommend one.

It is best to find out in advance what type of assessment is relevant to your area of difficulty and approach a professional who specializes in that field.
Give the assessor the assessor questionnaire in advance. It includes instructions and a detailed description of the data that must be collected and documented during the assessment.

The processing of an application is a complex procedure that involves professionals from various relevant fields (psychology, neuropsychology, learning disorders, etc.) This service is provided free of charge for those who register for the test. Because it is a long and expensive process, we are able to offer it only once registration for the test is confirmed.

Applications for special test accommodations, along with all the accompanying material, must be submitted to NITE before the close of registration for the test date for which you are registering. Unfortunately, we are unable to process documents received after registration has closed. The processing of applications (reviewing and discussing them, decision-making and preparation for test administration) is a long and complex process and the timeline is fixed.

Therefore, we recommend gathering the required documents and submitting them as early as possible (about three months before the test) rather than at the last minute.

You can find details about your registration, test location, and status of application for special accommodations by logging in on the NITE website.

Tests with special accommodations are offered on these test dates.

Test takers are assigned a test date and place only after all the applications for special accommodations have been reviewed. Notification of assigned test dates may take longer, about five weeks after the close of registration.

Yes. Practice is highly recommended as part of preparing for the test. Practice tests can be found on the website: Practice MIFAM

Possibly. NITE does not automatically report this information, but institutions may ask whether a test was taken under regular conditions or with accommodations. However, even if NITE provides this information it does not specify the type of special need for which the accommodations were given.

Refer to the section on Retaking a test with special accommodations.

You may send additional documentation until the test registration deadline. Note that payment is required if additional documentation is submitted after the submission of the initial application.

The initial review of your documents is free of charge. When you submit additional documents - even just one - your entire application is reviewed again. This involves reviewing all of the documents in your file, not just the new ones, in order to produce a comprehensive evaluation. The fee is for this second review process.

Payment for submitting additional documents is via the NITE website.

Submission of even one additional document means the entire application needs to be reviewed for a second time. Unfortunately, this is not possible after the close of registration because reviewing an application is a long and complex process that cannot be rushed.

If you possess documents that you did not include in the original application, you can submit them and request a reevaluation of your case.
Even if you do not possess new documents, you may submit a detailed letter of appeal along with a request for reevaluation of your case.

Please remember that decisions regarding provision of special accommodations are the outcome of in-depth consultation with several professionals. This process follows clear professional guidelines. Moreover, when there is any doubt regarding the appropriate accommodations for a particular test taker, further discussion takes place in a wider forum of professionals. Therefore, it is unlikely that a decision will be changed unless new material is submitted. The recommendation is not to appeal unless you are in possession of documents that were not submitted with the initial application and that provide the professional team at NITE with new information.

The initial application for accommodations is free of charge. The cost of processing it is included in the registration fee. There is a fee for submitting an appeal because the entire process must be repeated. It is very important to include all the information needed for a decision to be reached in your case.

Payment for submitting an appeal is via the NITE website.