Specific Learning Disabilities

Documentation Guidelines for Specific Learning Disabilities

Evaluator Qualifications

Professionals conducting assessments and rendering diagnoses of specific learning disabilities (SLD) must be qualified. A qualified professional needs to hold a degree in a field related to the diagnosis of SLDs and have at least one year of diagnostic experience with adults and late adolescents. Recommended practitioners may include licensed psychologists, other qualified mental health professionals, and learning disabilities specialists.

Current Documentation

An evaluation performed before age 18 is considered current only if the student’s initial request for accommodations at RPCC is made within three years of the date of the evaluation. An evaluation performed after age 18 is current if it is no more than five years old at the time that the student first requests accommodations at RPCC.

Comprehensive Documentation

Comprehensive documentation for a learning disability consists of a full psychoeducational evaluation.

All assessment instruments used in the evaluation must have age-appropriate norms for high school seniors, college freshmen, or older students. All standardized measures must be represented by standardized scores or percentile ranks based on published norms (grade equivalents are not useful without standardized scores). The report must be typed. Handwritten scores or summary sheets are not acceptable.

It is not acceptable for an evaluation to consist of only one test for the purpose of diagnosis.

For the documentation to be considered comprehensive, it must:

1. Contain a diagnostic interview;
2. Provide an assessment of the following domains
   • Aptitude–must include at least one of the following:
     • Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised
     • Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised: Test of Cognitive Ability

• Kaufman Adolescent and Adult Intelligence

• Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale (4th Ed.)

• Academic Achievement– must include at least one of the following:
  • Scholastic Abilities for Adult
  • Stanford Test of Academic Skills

• Woodcock-Johnson Psychoeducational Battery-Revised: Test of Achievement

• Wechsler Individual Achievement Test
• Information Processing;

3. Offer a diagnosis according to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders: Fourth Edition-TR (DSM-IV-TR); and
4. Include a clinical summary with recommended accommodations including an explanation for the need for each accommodation as it relates to the functional impact or limitations of the disability on learning or other major life activities.