SAS staff and students work together via an interactive process to determine appropriate accommodations. The process works best when SAS staff have the opportunity to review documentation, especially for students with invisible disabilities, prior to an initial meeting. In some cases, documentation may not be needed.
Documentation should be provided by a qualified, licensed professional whose field of specialization directly pertains to the student's disability and who is unrelated to the student. Except in cases of psychoeducational or neuropsychological evaluations, where there is a comprehensive report available, SAS recommends that students' providers complete SAS' Disability Verification Form, which is HIPAA-compliant, as documentation. The verification form also instructs providers to upload a brief, signed, dated letter on their letterhead. Documentation needs to be provided in English, and if translation is required, it must be completed by a certified translator.
As reflected by the questions in the SAS Disability Verification Form documentation that is most beneficial to SAS:
In many cases, providers can thoroughly complete the online SAS Disability Verification Form on a student's behalf to share the information that is most useful to SAS in working with students to determine reasonable accommodations and other supports. (Non-Dartmouth providers will also need to submit a brief, signed and dated letter on letterhead.) If a condition is variable in nature, documentation should generally be no more than one year old so that SAS is in the best position to support current needs.
However, for conditions such as speech/language or learning disorders, attention-defict/hyperactivity disorder, auditory processing disorders, traumatic brain injuries, and Asperger's/autism spectrum disorders, a thorough evaluation report is preferred over the verification form and may be required. Students and providers should review the condition-specific documentation guidelines that apply to them:
Examples of documentation that are not typically sufficient for accommodations at postsecondary level, but could be used to supplement primary documentation, include:
Documentation can be submitted to SAS in the following ways:
Additional information/documentation may be requested to verify a student's condition or to support particular accommodation requests especially when the student or their documentation does not clearly illustrate the need.