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Verifying and Documenting Disabilities
Verification of documented disabilities must occur
before a GED candidate can request special accommodations during testing.
While both medical and emotional disabilities may be verified through
consultation with the candidate's medical doctor, specific learning
disabilities and attention deficit/ADHD must be diagnosed and verified
by a certified professional. While this information may be relevant,
it must include educational testing and be verified by qualified professionals.
To determine how "old" someone's health assessments may be,
please see each form. Some health assessments
may be permitted to be only six months while others may be allowed to
be five years old.
As I have talked with "people in the know" at the University
of Utah (4 professors), school psychologists practicing in the field,
with Students At Risk Section here at Utah State Office of Education,
and with state Vocational Rehabilitation, I find the following to be
conclusions that I currently hold -- subject to change as I am educated
by more "people in the know:"
- For anyone under age 22, the public education system is responsible
to assess, verify, and document SLD and emotional disabilities. The
"system" is still responsible to cover the costs. Based
on the outcomes of the assessment, the system is also responsible
for developing an IEP for the individual that could include such things
as tutoring in preparation for the individual to take the GED Tests.
- For anyone over age 22, the public education system is NOT responsible
to assess, verify and document SLD and emotional disabilities. However,
with medical doctor documentation in hand, a person may approach
Vocational Rehabilitation for an assessment. Vocational Rehabilitation
may cover the costs of the assessments if the applicant meets certain
conditions.
- Medical doctors are allowed to diagnose ADHD and prescribe medicine,
but are not allowed to give therapy. Please see a table that summarizes
which professionals are capable
and allowed to make ADHD diagnoses.
- Records coming from the K-12 system indicating that someone has
SLD, emotional or any one of 13 disabilities are generally highly
reliable sources of documentation. The reason for this is the fact
that assessments are based on multiple, broad-range of "fact
finding" processes, including interviews with parents and the
student, documentation from medical doctors, as well as outcomes from
appropriate academic and intellectual assessment instruments. In short,
documentation is "triangulated" or done with a team approach
and not just a snap shot in time.
In Utah, practicing, licensed psychologists and psychiatrists fit into
the certified professional category. Those that fit into the certified
professional category with limitations are:
- Special Education Teachers: If trained
in the area, they are permitted to offer the WJR and screening tests,
but are not licensed to offer WISC, WAIS or individual intelligent
tests. Typically, school psychologists have licensure to offer all
tests needed to ascertain specific learning disabilities, but not
for ADD/ADHD.
- Social Workers: In all cases where a Social
Worker is involved in ascertaining a GED Testing client's eligibility
for special accommodations, state-level decision makers will need
a current curriculum vita (resume) from the Social Worker to accompany
the request for special accommodations. That vita will need to show
that the Social Worker is licensed to handle the diagnosing tests.
Typically, a LCSW will have the training to meet the standards for
giving certain tests needed to ascertain SLD, but other Social Workers
(LSW, MSW, SSW, and BSW) are not eligible unless they have documentation
and sufficient experience to validate their eligibility.
- In general, to make a diagnosis of ADD/ADHD, the following professionals
are licensed or certified: psychologists, neuropsychologists, psychiatrists,
and some medical doctors.
- Teacher and parent questionnaires are not sufficient documentation.
A teacher's classroom report of distractibility is not sufficient
evidence. The assessment must be an entire team analysis as
mentioned several paragraphs above.
Finally, if you are interested in knowing more about ADD or ADHD, we
suggest searching the web, library, or medical journals.
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  This
site brought to you through the partnership of Utah State Office of
Education
(USOE), Utah Education Network
(UEN) and Utah System of Higher Education
(USHE). Send questions or comments
regarding this site to
murray [dot] meszaros
[at]
schools [dot] utah [dot] gov
(Murray Meszaros)
.
This page last updated
September 11, 2008
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