Assessment for Eligibility for Services and Accommodations

A learning disability is a persistent condition of presumed neurological dysfunction that continues despite instruction in standard classroom situations. A person with a learning disability has a significant processing deficit in one or more areas such as memory, verbal skills, non-verbal reasoning/visual-spatial skills or processing speed. Someone with a learning disability has a history of struggling in major subjects like reading, writing, math or listening.

Learning disability assessment is for a student who thinks s/he will need an academic accommodation in order to truly show his/her knowledge in classes at CCSF. For example, you may understand the material well, but you rarely have enough time to finish your tests. This could be for a variety of reasons. The assessment may show a learning profile where extended test time is an appropriate academic accommodation for you.

A learning disability is not having difficulty with a challenging subject like higher-level science or math. It is not a psychological issue like anxiety in test-taking. It is not an attention or focusing issue like ADHD which is a different neurological diagnosis and is assessed by a detailed history of behavior by a doctor and not by aptitude and achievement testing. At the California Community Colleges, we assess for eligibility for services/accommodations. We are not providing a diagnosis or testing because someone is curious about how they learn.

Schedule a Learning Disability Assessment

If you are interested in a learning disability assessment, please contact the DSPS office at 415-452-5481 or come by our office in Room 323 of the Rosenberg Library on the Ocean campus.

You will be scheduled for a meeting with a DSPS counselor to see if LD testing is the right next step for you at CCSF. If we proceed, you will be scheduled for six hours of testing over the course of 3-4 days. Depending on your schedule and our availability, these testing days can be over the course of a week or a month.