Accommodations and modifications: are they for students with special needs, or for everyone?

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) was inspired by work in architecture on the planning of
buildings with a view to accessibility for people with physical disabilities (Turnbull et al., 2002).

I read this quote in Education for All: The Report of the Expert Panel on Literacy and Numeracy Instruction for Students With Special Education Needs, Kindergarten to Grade 6.

It interests me because it talks about how improvements, assistance, or accommodations made for a specialized group of people actually benefited a larger group of people than originally anticipated. One of the examples given (p. 10) looks at how wheel chair ramps, designed for people with special needs, ended up helping parents with strollers, people with baggage trolleys, and a variety of others. This notion filtered down into education, because many teaching strategies used to help students with special needs succeed will help improve the achievement of EVERY student.