Adapted. Modified. Accommodated: What these terms mean and why the difference matters.

These three words are frequently referred to in education. They appear in meetings, on report cards, and in IEP’s. Sometimes they are used interchangeably, as though they simply represent different ways of offering help. But they are not the same. And the way they are used (or avoided) reveals a great deal about how education understands access, disability, and responsibility.

In British Columbia policy, all students are entitled to equitable access to learning, opportunities for achievement, and the pursuit of excellence across their educational programs. On paper, this commitment is clear. The challenge lies in how it is enacted.

At their core, these terms describe how the curriculum is delivered and who is expected to do the work of access.

Adaptations are teaching and assessment strategies designed to allow a student to achieve the learning outcomes of a course or subject. The curriculum itself does not change. What changes is how students access information and demonstrate understanding. Policy explicitly describes adaptations as best practice in teaching, not exceptional measures. Any student, at any grade level, may require adaptations to access learning.

Adaptations are not unfair advantages. In fact, policy is clear that the absence of appropriate adaptations can unfairly penalize students for learning differences, negatively impacting both achievement and self-concept. In other words, adaptations are not optional. They are a core feature of equitable instruction.

Examples of adaptations include alternative formats for reading materials, access to assistive technology, extended time, different ways of demonstrating learning, pre-teaching key concepts, and differentiated assessment. These supports exist to remove barriers, not to lower expectations. Students receiving adaptations are still working toward curricular outcomes and are typically on a path toward graduation.

Modifications, by contrast, change the learning outcomes themselves. Modified programs involve individualized goals that differ from the prescribed curriculum. Policy is clear that modifications should be used sparingly and only after sustained instructional interventions and assessment indicate that the curriculum remains inaccessible, even with adaptations in place.

Modifications are intended for students whose needs are such that they cannot meaningfully access the curriculum, often due to significant cognitive, medical, or physical complexity. These decisions carry long-term implications. At the secondary level, a modified program results in a School Completion Certificate (Evergreen) rather than a Dogwood Diploma. For this reason, policy emphasizes that decisions about modification must be collaborative, thoughtful, and grounded in long-term educational and life planning.

The distinction between adaptation and modification matters because one preserves access to the curriculum, while the other fundamentally alters what a student is permitted to learn.

Accommodations are the practical, concrete measures that remove barriers created by environment, instruction, assessment, or pacing. Accommodations are not interventions. They are not rewards. They are not earned through progress. They are acknowledgements of disability-related need.

And yet, accommodation is often the word schools are least willing to use.

The term carries legal weight. It signals obligation under human rights legislation. As a result, it is frequently softened or replaced with vague language: “strategies,” “supports,” or “what we do for everyone.” This is where confusion sets in and harm begins.

This is also where universal supports enter the conversation.

Universal supports are practices intended to benefit all students: visual schedules, flexible seating, choice in how learning is demonstrated, predictable routines, movement opportunities. These are good practices. They reduce barriers. They improve classroom climate. But universal supports are not accommodations simply because they are available to everyone.

When schools say, “Everyone gets this,” it can sound equitable. What often goes unexamined is whether those supports actually meet the specific needs of a particular student. Universal supports are a starting point, not a substitute. They do not replace accommodations, and they do not relieve schools of their duty to respond to disability-related barriers.

When universal supports are used instead of accommodations, responsibility quietly shifts back onto the student. If everyone has access to the same supports and a child continues to struggle, the environment is deemed sufficient and the student becomes the problem. The system appears responsive without actually being accessible.

I often wonder whether we are wasting enormous amounts of time and resources creating IEP’s that simply list universal supports and strength-based goals for students who, in reality, require accommodations.

When a student needs accommodations, the issue is not motivation, character, or effort. It is access. Yet we routinely attach goals to the very supports students need in order to participate. Access becomes something to work toward, rather than a condition that should already be in place.

If I needed a goal attached to my disability-related accommodation, I would not be satisfied. I would question why my right to access was being treated as an outcome rather than a given. Ramps do not come with improvement targets. Glasses are not contingent on demonstrating sufficient effort to see. Accommodations are not interventions. They are acknowledgements of reality.

Strengths matter. Identity matters. Growth matters. But none of these should be prerequisites for access. When IEPs focus heavily on universal supports and aspirational goals while avoiding clear, enforceable accommodations, they risk becoming performative documents rather than protective ones.

The deeper question beneath all of this is not semantic. It is philosophical.

Is the curriculum something fixed that students must adapt themselves to, or is it a living framework that must be made accessible to the learners in front of us?

Too often, the curriculum is treated as immovable. When students struggle, schools focus on managing the student rather than examining the barriers embedded in instruction, assessment, pacing, and environment. Adaptations are minimized. Accommodations are avoided. Modifications become the quiet solution, even when the issue was never ability, but access.

The difference matters because these decisions shape who gets to fully participate in education and who is gradually edged to the margins. They determine whose needs are recognized as legitimate and whose are reframed as preferences, behaviours, or deficits.

Clarity matters. Language matters. And so does the willingness to ask harder questions.

Are we adapting learning so students can access it?
Are we accommodating difference, or asking students to absorb the cost of inaccessibility?
And when we say “this is for everyone,” are we expanding access, or quietly avoiding responsibility?