Our office’s primary mission is to determine if your request for disability-related accommodations is appropriate. An important piece in making this determination is documentation that you provide to us.

Disability documentation for the purpose of providing accommodations must both establish disability and provide adequate information on the functional impact of your disability so that effective accommodations can be identified.

The documentation needs to provide our office with a basic understanding of your disability and enough information to anticipate how the current impact of your disability is expected to interact with Converse University's requirements.

Documentation that is submitted to our office must:

• clearly state the diagnosed disability or disabilities
• describe the functional limitations resulting from the disability or disabilities
• be age-appropriate – describing how the disability or disabilities currently affect the student in an educational setting  
• describe the specific accommodations requested
• adequately support each of the requested accommodations
• be printed on official letterhead and be signed by an evaluator qualified to make the diagnosis (include information about license or certification and area of specialization).

Please use the Verification of Physical/Motor Disabilities handout to assist your healthcare professional with providing information necessary to satisfy the documentation guidelines.

• Please use the Verification of Psychological Disability handout to assist your healthcare professional with providing information necessary to satisfy the documentation guidelines.
• Please consult the Local Psychiatric Evaluators handout if you need testing for updated documentation.

ADD/ADHD

• Please use the Verification of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder handout to assist your healthcare professional with providing information necessary to satisfy the documentation guidelines.

Requirements for Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Documentation

Evaluations for ADHD should follow the Learning Disabilities Guidelines below and also provide the following information:

• A list of instruments/procedures used to diagnose the disorder
• A description of the symptoms which meet the criteria for this diagnosis with approximate date of onset
• Information about past and/or current use of appropriate medications used to treat this disorder
• Recommendations regarding the need for consultation by a physician if the student has not previously used medication as a part of the treatment program

• Please use the Verification of Learning Disability handout  handout to assist your healthcare professional with providing information necessary to satisfy the documentation guidelines.
• Please consult the Local Psychiatric Evaluators handout if you need testing for updated documentation.

Learning Disabilities

Requirements for Documentation:

1. All reports should be current (no more that three years old), on letterhead, typed, dated, signed, and otherwise legible.

2. Acceptable psychoeducational documentation will include:

• A summary of a comprehensive interview
• A comprehensive assessment of aptitude
• A comprehensive academic achievement battery
• An assessment of specific areas of information processing
• Evidence that the evaluator has ruled out alternative explanations for academic problems such as poor educational background, poor motivation, poor study skills, emotional problems, etc.
• A detailed description of how this impairment significantly limits a major life activity in an academic setting.

3. A licensed psychologist or appropriately credentialed psychoeducational professional should provide the current psychoeducational evaluation.

4. In order to make an informed decision about the student’s learning disorder and need for accommodation, the report should include the following:

• The nature of the learning disorder and the specific diagnosis as delineated in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual-IV (DSM-IV) or current edition
• A description of the severity and longevity of the condition
• Recommendations regarding treatment needs in the future and effective post- secondary compensatory strategies in order to accommodate the student’s specific learning deficits

• Please use the Verification of Learning Disability handout to assist your healthcare professional with providing information necessary to satisfy the documentation guidelines.
• Please consult the Local Psychiatric Evaluators handout if you need testing for updated documentation.

Please fill out the Verification of an Emotional Support Animal form and email to sami.singleton@converse.edu Updated vaccination records and proof of flea/tick prevention must be emailed once approved. 

Please note that letters purchased online and online ESA certifications typically do not provide the information needed by SAS to deem an ESA accommodation request reasonable.

Applications should be submitted 6 weeks before the start of school. Applications submitted after the school year has started may not be approved due to housing availability. 

Additional Information:
Students will generally only be approved for one ESA. Evaluating ESA requests takes time. Decisions regarding ESA requests can only be reached after appropriate documentation for the disability has been received and evaluated and a meeting/interview with the student has taken place. Students should allow at least 2 weeks to complete this process once they have met with an SAS staff member and should not obtain any animal until final approval is given.