General Documentation Guidelines
Students who request reasonable accommodations must submit current documentation (i.e., medical/educational/diagnostic reports) from licensed physicians, psychologists, or other qualified professionals, as well as supporting historical records and materials.
Evaluator Qualifications
- The professional conducting the assessments and rendering diagnoses must have comprehensive training with regard to the specific disability being addressed.
- All diagnosticians must be impartial individuals who are not family members of the student.
- The name, title, and professional credentials of the evaluator, including information about licensing or certification, the area of specialization, employment, and state in which the individual practices should be clearly stated in the documentation.
Current Documentation
UCLA generally requires that submitted documentation be within 3-5 years, but will utilize common sense and discretion in accepting older documentation of conditions that are permanent or non-varying. For conditions that are likely to change in presentation, severity, and functional limitations over time (i.e. psychological disabilities, TBI, etc.), documentation no older than 1 year is typically required. The University, therefore, reserves the right to request additional information in order to determine eligibility
Comprehensive documentation should:
- State the specific disability, as diagnosed, and when appropriate, should relate the disability to the applicable professional standards, for example, DSM-IV-TR.
- Provide relevant educational, developmental, and medical history.
- Describe the comprehensive testing and techniques used to arrive at the diagnosis. Include test results with subtest scores (standard or scaled scores) for all tests.
- Describe the functional limitations. Explain how the disability impacts the student’s daily functioning and abilities.
- Offer suggestions for accommodations for the disability and the rationale for the accommodations.
Documentation should include:
- Student’s name, ID number, Declaration disability is present, and Signature
- Name, Title, License Number, Address, and Signature of qualifying, diagnosing clinician
- Statement by the clinician that a disability is present
- Explanation and/or basis for diagnosis (tests, clinical interview, observations, history)
- Date disability first diagnosed, date clinician first treated student, most recent visit, expected duration of disability
- Detailed description of current functional limitations
- Statement of the extent to which limitations are mitigated by treatment and side effects of treatment if any
- Documentation should be comprehensive, written within a reasonable timeframe relative to the disability, and signed by your non-familial, treating, qualifying professional. Incomplete information may slow or delay the accommodation approval process.
Please do not submit the following documents
- Handwritten letters from licensed professionals;
- Verification of prescriptions/prescribed medications;
- Handwritten patient records or notes from patient charts;
- Documentation provided by a member of the student’s family;
- Diagnoses on prescription pads;
- Self-evaluations;
- Research articles; or
- Original evaluation/diagnostic documents—submit copies of the original documents.
- Documentation stored on electronic devices like CD-Rom or USB or flash drives.
- Pictures of documentation, even if the text is readable.
- Documentation without medical provider signatures