What is a Functional Limitation?

The presence of a disability does not necessarily mean the student will be eligible to use accommodations. It is the functional limitations of a disability that justify the provision of an accommodation.

A functional limitation is how the disability interferes with the person's physical, mental or cognitive ability. For example, a learning disability in reading can cause the student to skip lines so they have to spend extra time rereading several times in order to comprehend the text. Or, the student reads some of the words incorrectly or skips words, so the meaning is distorted. The results or functional limitations in these cases are slow reading rate and incomplete comprehension. These functional limitations could interfere significantly with a student's ability to demonstrate what she/he knows on a timed test.

DSS identifies the functional limitations by talking with the student and reviewing the disability documentation. There must be a logical connection between the functional limitation and the reasonable accommodation identified.