Disability Policies and Guidelines: Required Documentation for Services

Students seeking accommodation(s) must present to the office of Counseling Services, at their own expense, documentation from a certified and/or licensed professional. The professional must not be a relative of the student. Documentation of a disability should ideally be no more than three years old. If the documentation is older than three years, a new assessment of the disability may need to be completed. William Jewell College reserves the right to request additional and/or updated information in order to provide the best service to our students. The documentation presented to the office of Counseling Services will be used to determine the best support services for the individual student.

General Documentation Requirements

As appropriate to the disability, a comprehensive report should include:

1. A diagnostic statement identifying the disability, date of the current diagnostic evaluation, and the date of the original diagnosis;
2. A description of the diagnostic criteria and/or the diagnostic tests used;
3. A description of the functional impact of the disability;
4. Medications, treatments, assistive devices/services currently prescribed, including duration;
5. A description of the expected progression or stability of the impact of the disability over time;
6. Recommendation for accommodations, adaptive devices, assistive services, and support services;
7. The name and credentials of the diagnosing professional(s).

All documentation must be provided to the office of Counseling Services on professional letterhead and contain the dates of assessment, signatures, and titles of the diagnosing professionals. Prescription pad diagnoses do not qualify as acceptable documentation. If documentation is incomplete, students are notified promptly as to what is still needed.

Guidelines for Documentation of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD)

The office of Counseling Services will accept diagnoses of ADHD that are based on comprehensive diagnostic evaluations administered by a trained and qualified (i.e., certified and/or licensed) professional (e.g., psychiatrist, psychologist, neuropsychologist, or student clinician being supervised by a qualified professional).

Diagnostic Report:
A comprehensive report should contain the following information:

1. Diagnostic interview addressing relevant historical information, past academic achievement, age of initial diagnosis, discussion of medication, history and effectiveness of accommodations in past educational settings.
2. Procedures used to diagnose the disability (include a list of all instruments used in the assessment)
3. Discussion of testing results and behavior, including the symptoms that meet the diagnostic criteria. If the student was evaluated while on medication, please indicate the effect this may have had on performance.
4. DSM-IV-TR diagnoses (Axes I and II)
5. Diagnostic summary statement that includes the following information:
   • Clear and direct statement that ADHD does or does not exist, including a rule out of alternative explanations for behaviors.
   • Clear statement specifying the substantial limitations to one or more major life activities and the degree of severity.
   • Recommendation regarding medications
   • Recommendations for accommodations, including rationale for the accommodations.

Guidelines for Documentation of Learning Disabilities

The office of Counseling Services will accept diagnoses of specific learning disabilities that are based on current, age-appropriate, psychoeducational evaluations. The assessment must be administered by a trained and qualified (i.e., certified and/or licensed) professional (e.g., psychologist, school psychologist, neuropsychologist, educational diagnostician, or student clinician being supervised by a qualified professional) who has had direct experience with adolescents and adults with learning disabilities. The evaluation must include comprehensive measures in each of the following areas:

1. Aptitude (the evaluation must contain a complete intellectual assessment, with all subtests and standard scores reported)
2. Academic achievement (the evaluation must contain a comprehensive achievement battery with all subtests and standard scores reported). The test battery should include current levels of functioning in the relevant areas, such as reading (decoding and comprehension), mathematics, and oral and written expression.
3. Information processing (the evaluation should assess specific information processing areas such as short- and long-term memory, sequential memory, auditory and visual perception/processing, processing speed, executive function and motor ability)

Diagnostic Report
A comprehensive report should contain the following information:

1. Diagnostic interview that addresses relevant historical information, past and current academic achievement, instructional foundation, past performance in areas of difficulty, and age of initial diagnosis.
2. List of all instruments used in the test battery
3. Discussion of test behavior and specific test results
4. Diagnostic summary statement with the following information:
   • Clear and direct statement that a learning disability does or does not exist including, a rule out of alternative explanations for the learning problems.
   • Clear statement specifying the substantial limitations to one or more major life activities
   • Recommendations for accommodations, including rationale

Documentation Criteria for Medical/Physical Disabilities

The Office of Counseling Services will accept current diagnoses of medical/physical disabilities that are based on appropriate diagnostic evaluations administered by trained and qualified (i.e., certified and/or licensed) professionals (e.g., medical doctors, ophthalmologists, psychologists, neuropsychologists).

Diagnostic Report
A comprehensive report should contain the following information:

1. Diagnosis
2. Date of initial identification
3. Date of current evaluation
4. Current treatment and restrictions with expected duration of each
5. Prognosis or expected future status
6. Impairments resulting from the diagnosis
7. Functional limitations, especially for school related functions
8. Recommendations for accommodations, including rationale
9. If medication is prescribed:
   • Impact on school functioning, including attendance
   • Expected duration of prescriptions
   • Known side effects related to school functioning, if any

General comments from the evaluator are welcomed and appreciated.

Documentation Criteria for Psychiatric Disabilities

The office of Counseling Services will accept diagnoses of psychiatric disorders that are based on appropriate diagnostic evaluations. The evaluation must be conducted by a trained and qualified professional (i.e., psychiatrist, psychologist, neuropsychologist or other certified and/or licensed mental health or medical professional or student clinician being supervised by a qualified professional).

Currency of Documentation (note: The requirement for currency of documentation is different for psychiatric disabilities). The provision of all reasonable accommodations and services are based upon assessment of the current impact and limitations of the disorder on the student’s academic performance. Therefore, it is in the student’s best interest to provide recent and appropriate documentation relevant to the student’s learning environment. The documentation, in general, must be no more than one year old and more recent documentation may be required in some cases. Due to the nature of psychiatric disorders, updated reports may be requested.

Diagnostic Report
A comprehensive report should contain the following information:

1. A clear statement of the disability, including the DSM-IV-TR diagnosis, and description of severity.
2. A summary of current symptoms that satisfy the DSM-IV-TR criteria.
3. Date of diagnosis and approximate date of onset and prognosis of the disorder.
4. A summary of historical information, diagnostic interview, and assessment procedures/evaluation instruments used to make the diagnosis (if applicable). A summary of evaluation results, including standardized or percentile scores, should also be included.
5. Statement of current impact and limitations of the disorder on the student’s academic performance.
6. Medical information relating to the student’s needs, to include current treatments and the impact of medication on the student’s ability to meet the demands of the postsecondary environment.
7. Recommendations for academic accommodations to compensate for the disorder. Each recommended accommodation must include a rationale.
8. The name, title, and professional credentials of the evaluator.

Further assessment and/or documentation by an appropriate professional may be required if there are co-existing disabilities indicated. If learning, attentional, or physical disorders are involved, please refer to the documentation guidelines for those specific disabilities.