Verifying Your Disability

IUP
Indiana University of Pennsylvania

Pratt Hall, Room 216
201 Pratt Drive
Indiana, PA 15705

724-357-4067 (V/TTY)
Fax: 724-357-2889

Disability Support Links:

Office Overview
*English version

*Spanish version

Services Provided

Verifying Your Disability

Guidelines for Psycho-educational Evaluation Documentation

Temporary Disability Guidelines

DSS Handbooks:

DSS STUDENT Handbook

DSS FACULTY Handbook

DSS Printable Forms:

Declaration of Disability Form

*English version

*Spanish version

Semester DSS Scheduling Form

Recorded Book
Request Form

Test Request Form

Disability Support Services has established requirements requirements because non-standard tests and incomplete or outdated assessment reports may make it difficult for our office to accurately determine appropriate accommodations.

Note: If you are admitted to IUP, we may ask you to have further testing done if this testing is deemed necessary for planning and provision of appropriate accommodations and services.

Please click on one of the following links to determine what requirements are needed to verify your disability:

ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
DEAFNESS OR HARD OF HEARING
Learning Disabilities
LEGAL BLINDNESS OR VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
MOBILITY IMPAIRMENT, SPEECH IMPAIRMENT, ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY, CHRONIC ILLNESS, OR OTHER DISABILITY NOT LISTED ABOVE

ATTENTION DEFICIT DISORDER
A diagnosis of Attention Deficit Disorder must be made by a physician or clinical psychologist.

If you have already been diagnosed as having Attention Deficit Disorder, please have the professional who diagnosed you forward the results of the tests that support this diagnosis to us.
If you suspect that you have Attention Deficit Disorder but have not been diagnosed, we recommend that you take all of the following tests: the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Revised (WAIS-R), the Wechsler Memory Scale, and appropriate subtests from the Achievement Battery of the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Test Battery – Revised (to show the effects of possible A.D.D. on your academic achievement). If these test lead to a diagnosis, please follow the instructions in the previous step.

DEAFNESS OR HARD OF HEARING
To verify the extent of your hearing loss, please have your physician or audiologist send us a copy of a recent (within the last two years) audiogram.

Learning Disabilities
To verify your learning disability, please send us records of a psycho-educational evaluation completed by a qualified professional – a licensed educational or clinical psychologist, educational therapist, learning disabilities specialist, or speech and language pathologist. Your verification must fulfill the following requirements:

Your evaluator must have used widely-recognized tests that have been standardized for adult populations. These should assess your cognitive processing as well as your academic achievement.
For cognitive processing, we recommend the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale - Revised (WAIS-R) or the Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-Educational Test Battery – Revised, Tests 1 through 14.
For academic achievement, we recommend the tests in the Woodcock-Johnson – Revised Reading Cluster (Tests 22, 23, 31, and 32), the Mathematics Cluster (Tests 24, 25, and 33), and the Writing Cluster (Tests 26, 27, 34 and 35).

Your documentation must include specific test scores along with any write-up or narrative test report that was done in conjunction with your diagnostic testing.
The assessment should have been completed no more than three years before the date of your application.

LEGAL BLINDNESS OR VISUAL IMPAIRMENT
To verify your legal blindness or other visual impairment, please have you ophthalmologist or optometrist send us a copy of your most recent eye examination results. In general, to be eligible for services from the Disability Support Services Program, students who use corrective lenses must have a corrected vision of not less that 20/200. If you do not meet this requirement but have a visual impairment that significantly affects your academic performance, please contact our office.

MOBILITY IMPAIRMENT, SPEECH IMPAIRMENT, ACQUIRED BRAIN INJURY, CHRONIC ILLNESS, OR OTHER DISABILITY NOT LISTED ABOVE
Please have your physician or other appropriate professional send us a short letter of verification. If possible, the letter should specify the type of disability (in other words, the “diagnosis”), date of onset, and prognosis. For students with head injury, documentation such as described for learning disability is useful.

(Adapted from University of California – Berkeley)

If you have questions, please contact Disability Support Services.