Tests and examinations can pose unique challenges to individuals with disabilities and, if accommodations are not made, prevent these individuals from advancing professionally or academically. To ameliorate these challenges, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) prohibits the administration of tests in a manner that discriminates against people with disabilities. This prohibition applies to most educational and employment testing or assessment programs, regardless of whether the programs are public or private. In general, to comply with the ADA, entities offering examinations must provide testing accommodations to those examinees who have disabilities and need accommodations in order to demonstrate their skill or aptitude in the area tested. However, examinees are entitled to accommodations under the ADA only if they have a "disability" for the purposes of the statute. In the past, courts interpreted the term "disability" rather narrowly. Concerned that this construction diminished the reach of the ADA's protections, Congress enacted the ADA Amendments Act (ADAAA), P.L. 110-325 , in 2008. The ADAAA sought to expand judicial and agency interpretations of the ADA's definition of disability so as to ensure that the ADA provided broad antidiscrimination protection. The ADAAA effectively shifted the focus in many ADA cases from whether the plaintiff is entitled to the ADA's protection to whether the defendant has complied with the ADA. This shift is expected to improve the likelihood that individuals with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, and other health impairments are entitled to testing accommodations under the ADA. Because the ADAAA lowers the initial "disability" hurdle in ADA cases, some expect that the ADAAA will increase the judiciary's role in determining the adequacy of—or outright prescribing—testing accommodations. Section 309 of the ADA prescribes the general standard by which the sufficiency of particular testing accommodations is assessed. Section 309 requires persons and entities that offer examinations or courses "related to applications, licensing, certification, or credentialing for secondary or post-secondary education, professional, or trade purposes" to offer them "in a place and manner accessible to persons with disabilities or offer alternative accessible arrangements." The Department of Justice (DOJ), which is charged with implementing Section 309, has promulgated regulations stating that private testing entities must provide individuals with disabilities with accommodations that "best ensure" that the test accurately assesses the individual's aptitude "or whatever other factor the examination purports to measure." In a series of recent decisions, federal courts have deferred to this interpretation of Section 309, but a petition to review one of these decisions is now pending with the U.S. Supreme Court. This report discusses the recent federal court cases determining who is entitled to testing accommodations under the ADA and whether a particular testing accommodation is ADA-compliant. It emphasizes areas where the ADAAA has affected the analysis or outcome in a case. It also identifies new questions about the liability of an entity that requires, but does not administer, a test that purportedly discriminates against disabled examinees. Although the ADA does not require defendants to provide accommodations when doing so would impose an undue hardship, this report does not discuss the "undue burden" defense. It also does not discuss testing accommodations required under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA). An individual falls within the scope of the ADA's protection if he has a "disability" for the purposes of the ADA. The ADA defines the term "disability" as a "physical or mental impairment" that "substantially limits" one or more of the "major life activities" of such individual; a record of such an impairment; or the state of being regarded as having such an impairment. Before the ADAAA, courts interpreting the ADA viewed the phrases " substantially limits" and " major life activities" as sharply confining the term "disability." This meant that people with disabilities often struggled to establish in court that their disability entitled them to protection from discrimination under the ADA. In cases alleging discrimination in the administration of tests and examinations, plaintiffs with learning disabilities and attention deficit disorders frequently had their claims under the ADA dismissed because they failed to establish that their impairments "substantially limited" one of their "major life activities." Courts viewed a plaintiff's record of academic achievement or methods of coping with a disability as evidence that the plaintiff's impairment was not substantially limiting. For example, in Gonzales v. National Board of Medical Examiners , the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit held that a medical student's learning disabilities did not "substantially limit" one or more of his major life activities. The student, the Sixth Circuit reasoned, was not entitled to testing accommodations under the ADA because he was able to get good grades and achieve average standardized test scores despite his learning disabilities—that is, his impairments did not "substantially limit" one of his major life activities. Similarly, in Price v. National Board of Medical Examiners, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia determined that medical students with learning disabilities did not have a disability under the ADA because the students' histories of "significant scholastic achievement" proved that they had a capacity to learn "at least as well as the average person." Moreover, even when a plaintiff did not have a strong academic history, it might still be difficult to sufficiently link the plaintiff's academic difficulties with a "substantially limiting" impairment. For example, in Gonzalez v. Supreme Court of Texas , the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas rejected the argument that the plaintiff's Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) "substantially limited" him in a major life activity because, it found, his ADHD caused problems that were not meaningfully distinguishable—in type or degree—from the problems that face the majority of people coping with work and academic life. Nevertheless, a few plaintiffs in the pre-ADAAA era were able to establish that their learning disabilities substantially limited them in one or more major life activities. In Bartlett v. New York State Board of Bar Examiners , for example, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York found that the ADA protected a law student with dyslexia who was seeking testing accommodations on the New York State Bar Examination. In that case, the court held that the plaintiff's dyslexia substantially limited her in the major life activity of reading even though the plaintiff had developed mechanisms for coping with her dyslexia so that she could function academically and obtain both a Ph.D. and a law degree. Concerned that narrow judicial interpretations of the term "disability" prevented individuals with disabilities from receiving necessary accommodations under the ADA, Congress enacted the ADAAA in 2008. The primary purpose of the ADAAA was to ensure that the courts and executive agencies defined "disability" more expansively so that the ADA provided a "broad scope of protection." According to the ADAAA, a more inclusive interpretation comported with Congress's intent when it enacted the ADA. To achieve its goal, the ADAAA preserved the ADA's three-part definition of "disability" but defined "major life activities" and articulated new rules for the construction of the term "substantially limits." Because of these changes, a person with an impairment that substantially limits, inter alia , learning, reading, concentrating, and thinking is a person with a disability for the purposes of the ADA. Moreover, courts must assess whether an impairment is "substantially limiting" without regard to the ameliorative effects of mitigating measures, including learned behavioral or adaptive neurological modifications. The ADAAA also states that the definition of disability must be construed in favor of broad coverage to the maximum extent permitted by the terms of the act; and the term "substantially limits" must be interpreted consistently with the findings and purposes of the ADA Amendments Act. During the House debate, Representative Pete Stark stated that people with specific learning disabilities, such as dyslexia, have disabilities for the purposes of the ADA. The ADAAA, he said, "will reestablish coverage for these individuals" and ensure that the ADA's definition of disability "is broadly construed and the determination does not consider the use of mitigating measures." Similarly, Representative George Miller described the ADAAA as supporting the finding in Bartlett v. New York State Board of Bar Examiners, that an individual should not be penalized due to adaptive strategies that may lessen the impact of the disability. The ADAAA went into effect January 1, 2009. Because the courts do not generally apply a new statute to cases already pending, few federal cases have interpreted the scope of the ADA's protection in light of the ADAAA's amendments. However, when the plaintiff is bringing a claim under the ADAAA solely for injunctive relief, at least one court has held that the ADAAA does apply retroactively. In that case, Jenkins v. National Board of Medical Examiners , the Sixth Circuit reasoned that because the plaintiff was only seeking accommodations for an examination in the future, he was seeking prospective relief, and, therefore, the retrospective application of the ADAAA would not work an injustice to the defendant. Having found that the ADAAA's standards applied in Jenkins , the Sixth Circuit remanded the case to the district court to determine whether the plaintiff—a medical student with a reading disorder—was a person with a disability under the ADA as amended. Despite its infancy, the ADAAA is expected to shift the analysis in an ADA case from whether the plaintiff is entitled to the ADA's protection to whether the defendant has complied with the ADA. In practice, this shift may delay the disposition of these cases from the summary judgment stage to the merits. Many commentators also predict that people with learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, other health impairments, and cognitive disorders are more likely to qualify for testing accommodations because of the ADAAA. This view draws support from both the plain language of the statute and its legislative history, but few federal courts have had an opportunity to consider this demographic's eligibility for testing accommodations under the ADAAA.