To support the need for reasonable and appropriate accommodations for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (AD/HD), the student requesting services must provide documentation verifying the condition and describing its current functional impact.

Documentation serves as a foundation that legitimizes a student's request for appropriate accommodations. The diagnostician must be impartial and not a family member.

Attention Deficit/Hyperactive Disorder (AD/HD) is considered a medical or clinical diagnosis. Individuals qualified to render a diagnosis for this disorder are practitioners who have been trained in the assessment of AD/HD and are experienced in assessing the needs of adult learners. Only those psychological, neurological, and psychoeducational procedures and instruments shown to have acceptable norms, reliability and validity with a later adolescent/adult population should be used. Departures from this procedure must be explained and appropriately defended.

 The report should provide information supporting an AD/HD diagnosis in adults consistent with the DSM-IV. Information should be included regarding the onset, longevity, severity, and current functional impact of symptoms, as well as the specifics describing how it has interfered with educational achievement. This may be accomplished through narrative or individualized assessments of current cognitive processing and educational achievement.

Please refer to the attached documentation checklist. It may be used as a guideline to develop a report that enables Cedar Crest College to deliver appropriate accommodations.

For your information, I have also included a Cedar Crest College brochure "Services to Students with Disabilities".

Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you,

Karen Schoenborn

Disabilities Specialist
 
 

Please submit a report on your letterhead, which addresses each of the listed items. You are not limited to these items, but you are requested to provide as much information as possible in the following areas:

1. Date of evaluation and a statement of ADD or ADHD as a DSM-IV diagnosis with a description of supporting present symptoms, including a narrative summary, with reference to any scores and tests used which support the diagnosis. The diagnosis should also indicate the level of severity: mild, moderate, or severe.
2. A comprehensive assessment may include clinical summary of objective and historical information establishing symptomology indicative of AD/HD throughout childhood, adolescence, and adulthood as garnered from transcripts, report cards, teacher comments, tutoring evaluations, past psychoeducational testing, and third party interviews when available. If the student has no reported history of AD/HD, then the report should include an explanation for the emergence of the disorder at this point in the student's developmental history.
3. An explanation of how possible alternative diagnoses, such as schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, autism, mental retardation, mood disorder, anxiety disorder, or substance abuse, were explored as possible or co-existing alternative causes of reported AD/HD symptoms. Assessment of differential diagnoses should be documented, and any co-morbid disabilities identified.
4. Description of any medication prescribed including frequency of administration, frequency of monitoring, and response to medication.
5. A statement of the functional impact of the disability on learning or other major life activity and the degree to which it influences the individual in the post-secondary environment.
6. A description of possible effective academic accommodations in the post secondary environment and the rationale for those recommendations (e.g. permission to tape record classes, assistance with note taking, testing in a distraction-free environment). If extended test time is suggested, please specify 1 1/2 times, double time or other.
7. Description of any referrals suggested for further testing or evaluation.
8. Description of any referral or suggestions made for other treatment or therapy.
9. If not included in your letterhead, license # and state of licensure.