Admission Process

This interview will cover the following background about your student:

• Relevant family history
• Developmental history
• Medical history
• Relevant psychosocial history
• Primary language in the home and current fluency in English
• Any history of substance abuse
• Any history of psychological disorders
• A thorough description of your student’s current struggles

We require a complete IQ battery, including all subtests and standard scores. This testing will give us an assessment of your student’s aptitude and academic achievement, such as the Wechsler Intelligence Scale (the most current, age-appropriate version).

We also require a complete achievement test battery, including all subtests and standard scores. This test will give us a history of your student’s accomplishments, including academic achievements and areas that need attention. Examples are:

• Woodcock-Johnson Psycho-educational Battery–Revised
• Tests of Achievement
• Wechsler Individual Achievement Test
• Stanford Test of Academic Skills
• Scholastic Abilities Test

This test will give us insight into how your student processes information, such as his or her short- and long-term memory, sequential memory, auditory and visual perception and processing, processing speed, executive functioning and motor ability. Examples are:

• Detroit Test of Learning Aptitude
• Woodcock-Johnson Tests of Cognitive Ability
• WAIS-III subtest information

Diagnosis should be documented as clearly and specifically as possible. Individual learning styles, learning differences, academic problems and so forth do not constitute a learning disability. 

We want your student to succeed in our program. Based on your student’s diagnosis, the professional conducting the evaluation may recommend specific accommodations. This section of the report needs to include the following:

• Any limitations to learning that your student has based on his or her diagnosis
• The degree to which these limitations impact your student
• A specific description of the accommodations that would help your student and why they are needed
• A description of how these specific accommodations would impact your student’s diagnosed learning difference

Your student’s formal psychoeducational evaluation must include the following:

• Typed on professional letterhead
• Dated and signed by the professional who conducted the testing and assessment
• The professional’s credentials, including license/certification and jurisdictional information

Qualified examiners include the following:

• Clinical and counseling psychologists
• Educational and school psychologists
• Neuropsychologists
• Learning disabilities specialists

You may also use professionals who are not on this list but qualified to assess learning differences. If you do, they must include the training and experience that qualifies them to conduct these assessments on their report.