Academics

Academics

John C. Ford Academic Resource Center ~ Disabilities Services

Documentation Guidelines

Purpose

1) to ensure that the student has been tested by a licensed professional who has diagnosed a specific learning disability which qualifies the student to receive appropriate accommodations as required by the ADA; and

2) to assist and guide us in providing the most effective and appropriate strategies and accommodations for the student.

Is a high school IEP (Individualized Educational Plan) enough documentation?

No, not alone. An IEP does provide useful information about the strategies, resources and accommodations that a student has utilized, and implies that the student was once diagnosed with a disability or learning deficiency. But, clinically speaking, it is not evidence of a particular learning disability. If the student had not been tested or retested in a number of years, it would be wise to be tested again to have up-to-date documentation, which most colleges and all certification exam boards require.

What is Appropriate Documentation?

Documentation for a learning disability is the full report of testing by the physician or psychologist who performed the tests.

Criteria for Acceptable Documentation

1) A qualified professional, such as a licensed psychologist or physician must conduct the evaluation

2) Testing must be comprehensive and include:

• The diagnostic interview
  
  
• The neuropsychological or psycho-educational evaluation of:
  Aptitude
  Achievement
  Information Processing
  Other Assessment Measures

3) The documentation must include a specific diagnosis

There must be a definitive claim that the student has a learning disability including a description of the type of disability, its characteristics, and its impact on the learning processes.

4) Actual test scores from standardized instruments must be provided along with: dates the tests were given, names of tests, student scores matched with norms, and summaries of the results.

5) Any recommendations by the evaluator(s) should include a rationale.

The evaluator's recommendations should stem clearly and specifically from findings in the evaluation.

6) Testing must be current

An accepted definition of "current" is two to three years, however, since many students enter college with documentation that is already two or three years old, the problem is whether or not a new evaluation is required after the three years is up. There is no universally accepted answer to this problem; the most reasonable procedure is to evaluate each student on a case-by-case basis and determine the need for more current documentation based on the nature of the disability, the age and reliability of the documentation, and the student's history. Neumann College expects a student to provide updated documentation when the present documentation is clearly out-dated or unreliable, or when the disability is being medically treated (such as some cases of ADD/ADHD).

The tests most frequently used to measure cognitive or intellectual ability are:

• Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Revised (WAIS-R)
  
  
• Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children - Revised (high school documentation)
  
  
• Woodcock - Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery - Revised (WJPEB-R)
  
  

The tests most frequently used to measure educational achievement are:

• Woodcock - Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery II
  
  
• Wide Range Achievement Test - Revised (WRAT-R)
  
  
• Woodcock Reading Mastery Tests - Revised
  
  
• Stanford Diagnostic Reading Test
  
  
• Stanford Diagnostic Mathematics Test
  
  

The test most often used to evaluate visual processing is the

• Bender Visual Motor Gestalt Test

Disabilities Services Coordinator: Vince Riley

Office: Ford Academic Resource Center (on the ground floor, beneath the Library in the Bachmann Main Building)

Phone: 610-361-5471

Email: rileyv@neumann.edu