DISABILITY PROGRAMS & RESOURCE CENTER
1600 Holloway Avenue, Student Services Building 110
San Francisco, CA 94132
LEARNING DISABILITY
Tel: 415/338-2472
Fax: 415/338-1041
e-mail: dprc@sfsu.edu
web: www.sfsu.edu/~dprc
Documentation Guidelines
Provision of reasonable accommodations at SF State is based on a student’s self-reported need in
conjunction with any disability documentation submitted to the DPRC. We provide guidance and
support in obtaining additional documentation if needed. Provisional DPRC services may be available
during this process on a case-by-case basis.
The guidelines below help to establish a student as an individual with a disability and to provide a
rationale for reasonable accommodations. Documentation should be current and printed on the
letterhead stationery of a verifying professional. The most comprehensive documentation includes the
following:
I. A Qualified Professional Must Conduct the Evaluation
Professionals conducting assessments and rendering diagnoses of specific learning
disabilities must be qualified to do so. Experience in working with an adult population is
essential. The following professionals would generally be considered qualified to
evaluate specific learning disabilities, provided they have additional training and/or
experience with adults with learning disabilities:
 Licensed Educational Psychologists
 Licensed Clinical Psychologists
 Credentialed School Psychologists
 Neuropsychologists
 Learning disability specialists employed in colleges and universities
All documentation must be legible, on letterhead, dated, signed, and include the
professional's title, professional credential, and/or license number (if appropriate).
II. Testing Must Be Current
Because the provision of reasonable accommodations and services is based upon
assessment of the current impact of the student’s disabilities on his/her academic
performance, it is in a student’s best interest to provide recent documentation.
Testing/evaluation results should generally be dated no more than three years earlier for
high school students and no more than five years earlier for adults. Consequently, it may
be appropriate for a qualified professional to update the evaluation report. The purpose of
this update is to determine the student’s current need for accommodations with
supporting rationale.
III. The Psychoeducational or Neuropsychological Evaluation Must Be
Comprehensive
The assessment for a diagnosis of a specific learning disability involves multiple
measures and clinical observations. It is not acceptable to administer one test nor is it
acceptable to base a diagnosis on only one discrepant score or on test data alone. Tests
used must be reliable, valid, and standardized for use with an adult population. Standard
scores by age must be provided for all normed measures. Minimally, the evaluation must
address:
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A. History – The Diagnostic Interview
An evaluation must include a comprehensive diagnostic interview by a qualified
evaluator who addresses relevant background information to support the diagnosis. In
the case of students who were assessed at a California Community College, copies of
the Intake Interview, if filled out completely, and the Culturally/Linguistically
Diverse Supplemental Interview usually suffice. The diagnostic interview should
include:
 Developmental history
 Academic history, including results of prior standardized testing, reports of
classroom performance, and notable trends in academic performance
 Family history, when relevant
 Language history, including discussion of the impact of English as a Second
Language (ESL) factors, if present, on learning
 Psychosocial history
 Medical history, including the absence of a sensory impairment or medical or
psychiatric basis for the present symptoms
 Description of the presenting learning problem(s)
B. Aptitude
A complete aptitude battery is required with all subtests and standard scores.
Preferred instruments for adults include, but are not limited to, the following:
Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Third or Fourth Editions (WAIS-III or WAIS- IV)
or the Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Cognitive Abilities (WJ III).
C. Achievement
A complete achievement battery is required with all subtest and standard scores. The
battery must include current levels of academic functioning in reading (decoding,
comprehension, and fluency), mathematics, and written language. Acceptable
instruments include but are not limited to, the Wechsler Individual Achievement Test
(WIAT II or WIAT III), Woodcock-Johnson III Tests of Achievement (WJ III), or a
combination of specific achievement test normed for adults. The Wide Range
Achievement Test (WRAT-3 and WRAT-4) is not a comprehensive measure of
achievement and is not acceptable if used as the sole measure of achievement. The
Nelson-Denny Reading Test is not an appropriate sole diagnostic measure of reading
achievement.
D. Information Processing
Specific areas of information processing (e.g., working, short-and long-term memory;
auditory and visual perception/processing; processing speed; and visual-motor ability)
must be assessed. Acceptable instruments include, but are not limited to, information
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from subtests on the WAIS or the Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability and
other instruments relevant to the presenting learning problems.
E. Clinical Observations
In addition to standardized tests, clinical observations are essential to the assessment.
F. Interpretive Information and Diagnosis
Individual “learning styles,” “learning differences,” and “academic problems” in and
of themselves do not constitute a learning disability. Rather students with learning
disabilities at the university level typically display statistically significant intracognitive and ability-achievement discrepancies indicative of a presumed central
nervous system dysfunction.
In order to make this determination (i.e. diagnosis), test data must be integrated
into the written report by the evaluator with the following:

History
Reference relevant background information first identified during the diagnostic
interview prior to conducting the standardized assessments (WAIS – IV, etc.)

Clinical Observations
Include evaluator’s observations of the client while conducting the standardized
assessments (WAIS – IV, etc.) and informal assessment procedures.

Exclusionary Criteria
Rule out alternative diagnoses and extrinsic influences that may interfere with
learning but do not constitute a learning disability (e.g., low cognitive ability,
sensory impairment, ESL, psychiatric disorder, lack of educational opportunity.)
VI. Recommended Accommodations
The diagnostic report must include specific recommendations for accommodations, and
the student’s pattern of strengths and weaknesses must provide a rationale for the
recommended accommodations. (For example, what is the processing disorder, and what
is the relationship between the disorder, the functional limitation and the requested
accommodation?) If an accommodation or auxiliary aid was or was not used in the past,
it should be discussed, including information about specific conditions under which the
accommodation was used (e.g., standardized testing, final exams, national board
examinations). A 504 Plan or IEP is not sufficient documentation of a learning disability
in and of itself, but can be included as part of a comprehensive assessment battery as
described in this document.
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