Documentation Requirements for Learning Disabilities

Documentation of a disability must be provided by a certified or licensed professional with the expertise necessary to make the determination. In order to provide the best possible accommodation, documentation including recommendations of accommodations done within the last three years are most helpful and will be required for accommodation request that require changes in academic programs such as substitutions or waivers of class requirements.

Anyone seeking support services as a learning disabled student at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln must have documentation of a learning disability. This documentation must:

1. Be submitted by a professional who is licensed to diagnose a learning disability (e.g., neurologist, educational psychologist, school psychologist);
2. Include the testing/evaluation procedures and test results used to make a diagnosis of a learning disability;
3. Be dated no more than three years prior to the request for services or conducted after the student's 16th birthday.

The diagnostic assessment preformed to verify a learning disability should show:

• Significant intracognitive discrepancy (ies) as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of aptitude (e.g., Verbal IQ vs. Performance IQ, Perceptual Organization vs. Verbal Comprehension on the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale Revised).

OR

• Significant aptitude-achievement discrepancy (ies) as measured by technically adequate, standardized instruments of aptitude (e.g., Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised; Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, Part I) and achievement (e.g., Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Battery, Part II; Wide Range Achievement Test).

High School Individual Educational Plans that do not provide diagnostic information including actual testing results will not be accepted as adequate documentation for accommodation planning purposes.