According to the most recent data from the American Council on Education, 8% of entering full-time college freshmen reported having a disability (HEATH Resource Center, 2001). Of these students, the largest percentage (40.4%) reported having a learning disability (LD). Under the present guidelines, universities are struggling to meet the needs of students, maintain long-established standards of curriculum and excellence, and also conform to the requirements of federal and state disability statutes. This study explored the following questions: (a) To what degree did data from reports on LD college students provide evidence for empirically-based factors that can contribute to the clinical description of learning disabilities in adults? (b) Were there reliable relationships between test results and diagnostic labels assigned by LD examiners? (c) Were diagnostic labels related to the kinds of accommodations recommended? and (d) Was the severity of the disability related to the extent of the accommodation?
Data from one site showed consistent principal component factors derived from 28 standardized subtest scores commonly used by psychologists evaluated college students for Learning Disabilities. Additionally, these components accurately predicted the diagnostic labels (LD type) given by the examiners about 56% of the time. This rate was greater than chance and may suggest that examiners complete their own “informal” Discriminant Analysis with the test data.
Finally, the diagnostic labels and severity of the LD was significantly correlated with recommended accommodations. However, these correlations were very low. Further study is needed to determine if the correlations between LD type and severity of the LD are related.
