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Massachusetts Maritime Academy - Documents Required Disability Resources - Documents Required
Massachusetts Maritime Academy is committed to providing reasonable accommodations for students with documented disabilities.  The ADA defines a disability as a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more life functions. 

Documentation of the disability must have been completed within three years of the date of enrollment.  An I.E.P. or 504 Plan is NOT sufficient documentation and does NOT carry over to the college level.

A specific learning disability must be stated within the submitted documentation.  A student must exhibit a demonstrated deficiency in one or more areas of specific academic deficits; a correlated cognitive deficit; an average intellectual ability.  If another diagnosis is applicable, it should be stated.
One or more of the following individually administered intelligence tests must have been performed, with results and subscores reported:
  • WAIS-R   
  • WISC-R
  • WISC-III   
  • Stanford Binet
  • KAIT
Cognitive processing strengths, weaknesses, and deficits should be discussed.  Clear documentation of deficit areas is necessary in order for MMA to provide appropriate accommodations. Discussion must include the following processing areas:
  • Visual spatial abilities
  • Memory; auditory and visual; short-term and long-term
  • Fine motor dexterity
  • Executive functions (verbal and nonverbal reasoning).  Knowledge of student's cognitive flexibility and automaticity with cognitive tasks is helpful.
  • Attention; auditory and visual
Oral language skills should be assessed and discussed.  Formal instruments or an informal analysis of a language sample are appropriate.  The college is primarily interested in whether a student's learning disability impacts oral language and/or if a separate speech disorder is present.

Social-emotional status should be assessed and discussed.  Formal assessment instruments and/or clinical interview are appropriate.  The college requires differential diagnosis of any psychological disorder that can impact academics as a result of a learning disability. College can be stressful for students who have learning disorders. In an attempt to better serve students, it is helpful to know about personality characteristics, psychological welfare, self-esteem, and stress level.

Achievement assessment in the following areas is required:
  • Written Language (spelling and written expression). It is helpful if a written language sample is provided for review.
  • Reading (decoding and comprehension).
  • Mathematics (applied word problems and calculations). It is helpful to indicate student’s success level with algebra problems since scores rarely provide this.  Students, for example, can score within the low-average range on the WRAT-R without attempting algebra problems.
Assessment instruments must have age appropriate norms for high school seniors/college freshmen or older students.  Standard scores must represent all standardized measures or percentile ranks based on published norms.  These can be supplemented by informal assessment.

The evaluator MUST include  specific recommendations that address the specific learning disability.  (The recommendations usually appear on the last page of the testing results.  Please be sure they are included.)

 
Documentation may be submitted to MMA by:

Mail:  
Dr. F. Tishkevich
Disability Resource Officer
Massachusetts Maritime Academy
101 Academy Dr.
Buzzards Bay, MA  02532

E-mail:   ftishkevich@maritime.edu

FAX:   (508) 830-6401
 

last updated 5-2-12 by discord@maritime.edu