Should dislexic people be allowed extra time in exams

I'll do step by step rebuttals this round. Let me start by defining what exams are for: exams are a formal test of a person's knowledge or proficiency in a subject or skill. This means that tests are indeed meant to give an accurate representation of a persons ability of a subject, so is should not be surprising for a dyslexic person to not be so able in a mostly writing exam.Except that it does not represent his/her knowledge. We aren't f.x testing how well a person can write in a history test. If we take it a bit to the extremes; If I would be missing both my hands and would show up at a test would you as a teacher not give me assistance? I can read and write, but it takes me much much slower than other pupils because I'm holding my pencil by my teeth. I can write perfectly fine, I'm just much slower. Would you say that it is unfair to assist me? Other students don't get any assistance, why should I? I can learn to write as quickly as everyone else but it's still much much harder. After speaking to many dyslexic people the general consensus from them was that the extra time was a joke, of course they appreciated the extra time given as it did enhance their grade, but even they felt it was an inaccurate representation of their skill.Tell me, in what way did it enhance their grade? Did the extra time somehow allow them to know more? Did it allow them to increase the capability of their memories so that they'd get better grades? Or did it allow them to finish the test and truly get the grade that they deserve? Or would they rather admit to being disabled and that they should get lower marks just because they had to rewrite the answer four times due to them always messing up the word order? I know that most universities start by looking at grades only.Incorrect, this is school dependent and does not hold in your favour each and every time. When applying for HR (Reykjavik university1), one of the many universities here in Iceland you are not only required to hand over your grades but are also, and I translate and quote: “Applicants are required to have graduated secondary education, Primal studies at HR, or other equivalent level of education. When reviewing applications a note is made of grades from secondary, any further education, career experience, participation in social activities and interests/hobbies2” HR has more than once and more than twice accepted a student that had lower final grades than another applicant that did not get accepted because he was better fit for the university and the studies that are taught there. Grades are not always a deciding factor. Someone applying for University with dyslexia should be able to correctly estimate what he is capable of and what not, he's a slow reader/writer, he isn't retarded. The disability does not affect his intelligence in any way. If he cannot fully understand how far his limits go he'll fail university and try again later. Increase font size with all papers.This isn't a viable option. Let's say that a dyslexic person can read at his best speed with font size 32 ( a bit extreme I admit). Are you going to print out a separate version for each student? The size of my entire round up to this point is a single page, in size 32 it would be 8-fold the amount of pages. A standard 10 page test would well be fit for a novella in size 32 font. They will not in their work be provided with somebody who can read everything out for them.Again, dyslexic people aren't retarded. Unless you're talking about kids at the age of 7-9 they will be well aware that they don't have a narrator with them at all times. Remember, we're only talking about tests here, they don't come home and get someone to read the paper, their facebook wall, the rest of the teaching material unless they have an audio book and if they already have a job alongside school they should be getting a pretty good look at how life is. perhaps we should have a symbol or a sign placed beside the gradeWe cannot cherry pick dyslexia out of all other illnesses that might affect the final grade. Do you also want a special symbol for ADHD? How about those mentally challenged? How about depression? That can affect your grade pretty harshly. We'd end up with a system that would take more room than the grade itself. With the correct resources and support it can be overcome, and surely if this can be overcome then we should all get behind it?Actually, research indicate that dyslexia in some cases grow off people as they grow older. The brain decides that it ignores one of the eye inputs and instead focus all of it's efforts deciphering the info the other eye is picking up on.3 however, we cannot simply wait and see If a student will suddenly snap out of it, because for some people reading and writing become too hard. They sit down and write what to them is a perfectly logical sentence, but it isn't until someone reads it out that they realize that they put all the verbs behind the nouns. They knew what they where writing, but they didn't notice that it went out of the pen incorrectly. They may not be stuck with this forever, but while they are trying to recover, why should they not get that extra time? For some not getting the extra time is a living nightmare that they never wake up from4 severe disability should be provided with audio-testAre you going to be the one that dictates every test? How are you going to distribute this audio-test? You can't let them bring audio devices of their own, they'd just place the answers on the disc and get a perfect score. The school might not have enough audio devices of its own to share amongst everyone, how would this work? these extra minutes will do no harm nor good. why is it that we keep them?I apologize, I wasn't clear enough when I phrased that conclusion. What I meant to say was that in a larger context outside of the test these extra 25 minutes won't impact their lives. It helps them fight stress and have a fair shot at the test as they are taking it, but once the leave the classroom they won't matter anymore. 1- We let them have extra time, giving people a false sense of their strengthsI've stated this several times: they aren't stupid. Dyslexia does not impact ones mental capabilities beyond their ability to process symbols. They know that they have it harder, they are aware that they have this minor disability. You place your arguments in a way that makes it seem like dyslexia affects the person so harshly that they suddenly forget their handicap and believe that the extra minutes are granted to them everywhere and that they are much smarter for having them. 2- We lengthen exam timeThis also causes problems. Often when taking finals that come in succession those that get extra time end up sneaking into the time allotted for the next test. When we're talking about 4-6 extra heads it usually won't matter but when the entire class of 50-60 students that don't need the time come along you'll get a lot of problems. 3- special exams fitted for their disabilityAnd how do you propose that this extra test would differ from the regular test? Remember, they are just as smart as you. Whatever questions you can answer they will answer as well. The problem isn't that they don't understand the question, the problem is that they take longer to read it and write the same answer. 4. same amount of time + recognise their handicapRead the fourth source for the answer to this one; a low score affects them emotionally just as much as it affects you. You wouldn't like to get a 47% when you know you should have gotten a better grade? 5. Dyslexia is treatedHow are you going to cure everyone by the time the test comes around? There isn't a fool-proof cure to dyslexia that works for everyone so this point is mute. I await the next and final set of arguments by my opponent. 1) http://www.ru.is...2)http://www.ru.is...3) http://www.ontrackreading.com...4)http://dyslexia.yale.edu...