A district guide for assessing a learning disability

Outline

Criteria for learning disabilities
Components of a learning disability

Criteria:

In order for a student to be considered Learning Disabled and eligible for special education services the following criteria will be considered according to the severity, significance and persistence of the presenting problem as related to:

discrepancy between intellectual ability and actual achievement (performance in the classroom and standardized test).
information processing abilities and discrepancies
elimination of exclusionary factors
the need for special education services that are required because the student cannot learn through ordinary methods of instruction.

Components:

Intellectual Ability.

To be considered learning disabled a student's intellectual functioning should be near average, average, or above average. This criterion should exclude the student whose primary learning problems is due to mental retardation.

A student's academic functioning should be measured against intellectual functioning, not chronological age. This procedure may serve to identify the gifted student who is performing only at grade level. It will also exclude the slow learner whose achievement is commensurate with his or her learning potential.

A comprehensive evaluation must be conducted. It is recommended that the global or full scale score be used in determining a child's current intellectual functioning. Where language factors or severe perceptual deficits exist, global IQ scores should not be used as the best estimate of learning potential. In these cases, justification of estimated learning potential must be documented in the report.

Academic Achievement.

The student must evidence a significant discrepancy between achievement and intellectual ability in one or more of the following areas:

oral expression

listening comprehension

written expression

basic reading skills

reading comprehension

mathematics calculation

mathematics reasoning

A significant discrepancy between ability and performance must be present. In order to account for the effects of age on academic functioning the use of Standard Scores will be encouraged.

Where Standard scores are used, a significant discrepancy would be at least 1.0 Standard deviation (approximately 15-16 standard score points) between the measure of learning potential and academic measures.

Processing Skills

A student must evidence a deficit in one or more of the psychological processes, such as perception, integration, and expression. A process deficit is based on the student's unique pattern of abilities and disabilities. Deficits are identified on the basis of a students resultant score(s) on test(s) that assess basic psychological processes and academic readiness skills. Psychological processing deficit(s) must significantly impede the student's academic achievement. Standardized tests and informal measures (work samples, error analysis, etc.) may be employed to assess processing skills. A student's chronological age, intellectual ability, and academic achievement must also be considered in the assessment of psychological processing deficits.

The criteria for a severe processing deficit should result in a variant profile of test scores, evidencing a pattern of strengths and weaknesses. Normally the profile of the slow learner will show no evidence of a severe discrepancy between abilities and disabilities.

Persistence

This student must evidence a history of school problems related to expected achievement. Academic strengths as well as weaknesses must be consistently present. The student may have had a recent experience that results in a persistent problems such as: head injury, paralysis, seizures. The presence of these physical factors may or may not be related to a subsequent learning disability.