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Learning Disability Practices for Assessment and Accommodation

Revised March 2009

I. Definition of a Learning Disability

A learning disability is a generic term that refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested by difficulty in achieving major life activities (such as listening, speaking, reading, writing, reasoning, or mathematical abilities). Due to neurological dysfunction, these disorders occur in persons of average to very superior intelligence. Even though a learning disability may exist concomitantly with other disabling conditions (e.g. sensory impairment) or environmental influences (e.g., cultural/language differences/ or conditions defined in the current DSM); it is not the direct result of those conditions or influences.

II. Student Responsibility for Verification of a Learning Disability

It is the legal responsibility of each student seeking accommodations from California State University, Sacramento to provide a written, comprehensive psycho educational evaluation.

III. Assessment Providers

Assessments are currently administered at Psychological Counseling Services (PCS) on campus for regularly enrolled/matriculated students. Due to the volume of requests, there may be a waiting period. For more information about PCS services, see http://www.csus.edu/psysrv/.

Information regarding off campus sources of LD assessment are available from PCS. Any licensed educational psychologist, neurologist, or learning disabilities specialist can administer the assessments. You may want to first check with your health insurance regarding possible availability of coverage. Refer to local educational resources such as local community college or school district for additional referral services.

IV. Documentation

Assessment must be comprehensive and include an assessment from each of the following categories. The following list is based on the AHEAD guidelines and ETS policy and is provided as a helpful resource but is not intended to be definitive or exhaustive.

1. Aptitude/Cognitive Ability:

  • Wechsler Adult Intelligence scale – III (WAIS-III)

  • Woodcock-Johnson III: Tests of Cognitive Ability

  • Woodcock-Johnson Psycho educational Battery - Revised: Tests of Cognitive Ability

2. Academic Achievement:

  • Woodcock-Johnson III: Tests of Achievement

  • Woodcock-Johnson Psycho educational Battery – Revised: Tests of Achievement

  • Wechsler Individual Achievement Test (WIAT)

  • Nelson-Denny Reading Skills Test

  • Wide Range Achievement Test – 3 (WRAT) is not a comprehensive measure of achievement and therefore should not be used as the sole measure of achievement.

3. Test Scores

Standard scores and/or percentiles should be provided for all normed measures. Grade equivalents are not useful unless standard scores and/or percentiles are also included. The data should logically reflect a difficulty in achieving in a major activity, such as a limitation to learning for which the student is requesting the accommodation. The particular profile of the student's strengths and weaknesses must be shown to relate to the functional limitations that may necessitate accommodations.

V. Currency of Assessment

Because the provision of all academic accommodations is based on the impact of a disability on current academic performance, the psycho educational assessment must have been conducted using adult norms. It is preferred that it was done no earlier than three years prior to the student’s initial request for disability-related services at the University.

VI. Diagnostic Assessment Report Must Include:

  1. Clinician’s name, title, license number, phone number, summary of all instruments, procedures, and date (s) of the assessment.
    • Documentation will not be accepted when done by a relative/family member of the student.
  2. Written summary of educational, medical, family histories and behavioral observations.
  3. All assessment scores (subtest and standard scores, percentiles) and a detailed interpretation of the results, including strengths and weaknesses.
  4. Clearly described intracognitive and aptitude-achievement discrepancies reflecting significance criteria, or the clinician’s rational for clinical judgment. These are required as follows:
    • Statistically significant intra-cognitive discrepancy (ies) [at least one standard deviation is necessary but, by itself, is not a sufficient condition] as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of aptitude (e.g., Verbal IQ vs. Performance IQ; Perceptual Organization vs. Verbal Comprehension on the WAIS III).
    AND

    • Statistically significant aptitude-achievement discrepancy (ies) [at least one standard deviation is necessary but, by itself, is not a sufficient condition] as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of aptitude (see I above)

    AND

    • At least one score in the average range of aptitude [standard score greater than or equal to 90; 25th percentile or above] as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of aptitude (see IV 1 above).

    • An average or greater standard score [greater than or equal to 90; 25th percentile or above] in at least one academic area as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of achievement.

  5. E. Statement of how the learning disability interferes with the student’s educational progress along with suggested recommendations for appropriate academic accommodations.

VII. Confidentiality

California State University, Sacramento has a responsibility to maintain confidentiality of the evaluation done on campus and may not release any part of the documentation without the student's informed and written consent. If the documentation was not performed by Sacramento State, the agency or clinician must be contacted by the student directing its release.

VIII. Academic Accommodations

  • Designed to meet a student’s disability-related needs without fundamentally altering the nature of the instructional program or altering any directly related licensing program.

  • Not intended to provide remediation (instruction in basic skills not acquired earlier in the educational process; e.g. basic grammar, basic math, English as a Second Language, etc.).

  • Specific support services will be authorized on case by case basis upon receipt of the assessment documenting the diagnosis of a learning disability.