Georgia Board of Regents Criteria for Accepting Outside Evaluation Documenting Learning Disabilities

 

• Documentation must be within three years of the student's application for assistance.
• A specific learning disability must be stated within the documentation submitted. The criteria a student must exhibit are one or more, but not all, areas of specific academic deficits; a correlated cognitive deficit; and average intellectual ability. If another diagnosis is applicable, it should be stated.
• One of the following individually administered intelligence test must have been utilized.
  1. WAIS-R
  2. WISC-R
  3. WISC-III
  4. Stanford Binet
  5. KAIT

Please list subscale scores.

• Cognitive processing strengths, weaknesses, and deficits should be discussed. Clear documentation of deficit areas is necessary in order for colleges to provide appropriate modifications. Please discuss the following processing areas:

a) Visual spatial abilities

b) Memory (auditory and visual: short-term and long term)

c) Fine motor/dexterity

d) Executive Functions (verbal and nonverbal reasoning). It is also helpful to know about the student's cognitive flexibility and automaticity with cognitive tasks).

e) Attention (auditory and visual)

• Oral language skills should be assessed and discussed. Formal instruments or an informal analysis of a language sample are appropriate. Colleges are primarily interested in whether or not a student's learning disability is impacting oral language and/or if a separate speech disorder is also present.
• Social-emotional status should be assessed and discussed. Formal assessment instruments and/or clinical interview are appropriate. Colleges need to know differential diagnosis of psychological disorders that impact upon academics from learning disabilities.
• College is typically quite stressful for students who have learning disorders. In an attempt to best serve students, it is helpful to know about their personality characteristics, psychological welfare, self-esteem and stress level.
• Achievement assessment in the following areas is required:

a) Written Language (spelling and written expression). If a written language sample is available to review, this is most helpful.

b) Reading (decoding and comprehension). If a written language sample is available to review, this is most helpful.

c) Mathematics (applied word problems and calculations). Please indicate whether or not the student was successful with algebra problems. Scores rarely provide this. For example, students can score within the low average range on the WRAT-R without attempting any of the algebra problems.

• Assessment instruments must have age appropriate norms for high school seniors/college freshmen or older students. All standardized measures must be represented by standard scores or percentile ranks based on published norms. These can certainly be supplemented by informal assessment.

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