accommodation

Accommodation means the help that a school or school board has to give a student who has more than the usual amount of difficulty learning or taking part in school. Ontario’s Human Rights Code says that school boards must do what they can to help students with conditions or differences that affect their ability to learn. In human rights law, these conditions or differences are called “disabilities”. But in schools, these differences or conditions are called “exceptionalities”.

There are 4 types of exceptionalities:

1. Behavioural, such as ADHD, depression, anxiety, or Oppositional Defiant Disorder
2. Communicational, such as autism, trouble hearing or speaking
3. Intellectual, including moderate intellectual delays (MID), severe developmental disabilities (DD), and giftedness
4. Physical, such as trouble seeing or moving around