Does anyone know if SATS are tested for literal interpretation? My 2 boys in year 6 (both autistic) completed a SATS revision sheet for homework this weekend. They completed independently and both misinterpreted the same question in the same way - the task was to underline the object and subject in each sentence in different colours. And they both did that - but they changed which colour they used for each in each sentence. I tested their understanding of object and subject - they knew which was which and I tested their interpretation of what they should do and they were both happy they'd done what had been asked of them correctly. But I suspect they should have used one colour for every object and another colour for every subject so that the marker could see that they knew which were objects and which were subjects.
I could see they'd answered the question literally - so arguably correctly - and it made me wonder if SATS tests were written/tested to be autism friendly?
Does anyone know? Or
Does anyone know who I should ask to find out?
It's a big enough challenge for them as it is without being disadvantaged by ill written questions! Meanwhile I'll obviously highlight to their teachers - I don't know if other non autistic children would have done the same as them and its just a bad question - but it would be good to know whether there is any formal filter for literal meaning of questions by examiners.
Many thanks.
