Current through Reg. 49, No. 38; September 20, 2024
(a) In
accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), every registration
examination must be conducted in an accessible place and manner, or alternative
accessible arrangements must be afforded so that no qualified individual with a
disability is unreasonably denied the opportunity to complete the licensure
process because of his/her disability.
(b) Special accommodations can be provided
for examinees with physical or mental impairments that substantially limit
major life activities. Available accommodations include the modification of
examination procedures and the provision of auxiliary aids and services
designed to furnish an individual with a disability an equal opportunity to
demonstrate his/her knowledge, skills, and ability.
(c) The Board is not required to approve
every request for accommodation or auxiliary aid or provide every accommodation
or service as requested. The Board is not required to grant a request for
accommodation if doing so would fundamentally alter the measurement of
knowledge or the measurement of a skill intended to be tested by the
examination or would create an undue financial or administrative
burden.
(d) Procedure for
requesting accommodation:
(1) To protect the
integrity of the testing process, an Applicant requesting an accommodation must
submit documentation regarding the existence of a disability and the reason the
requested accommodation is necessary to provide the Applicant with an equal
opportunity to exhibit his/her knowledge, skills, and ability through the
examination. The Board shall evaluate each request on a case-by-case
basis.
(2) An Applicant requesting
an accommodation must have a licensed health care professional or other
qualified evaluator provide certification regarding the disability as described
in Subsection (e) of this section.
(3) An Applicant seeking an accommodation
must make a request for accommodation on the prescribed form and provide
documentation of the need for accommodation well in advance of the examination
date. If the form is submitted less than sixty (60) days prior to the
examination date, the Board will attempt to process the request but might not
be able to provide the necessary accommodation for the next
examination.
(e) The
following information is required to support a request for an accommodation or
an auxiliary aid:
(1) Identification of the
type of disability (physical, mental, learning);
(2) Credential requirements of the evaluator:
(A) For physical or mental disabilities (not
including learning), the evaluator shall be a licensed health care professional
qualified to assess the type of disability claimed. If a person who does not
fit these criteria completes the evaluation, the Board may reject the
evaluation and require another evaluation, and the request for accommodation
may be delayed.
(B) In the case of
learning disabilities, a qualified evaluator shall have sufficient experience
to be considered qualified to evaluate the existence of learning disabilities
and proposed accommodations needed for specific learning disabilities. The
evaluator shall be one of the following:
(i)
a licensed physician or psychologist with a minimum of three years' experience
working with adults with learning disabilities; or
(ii) another professional who possesses a
master's or doctorate degree in special education or educational psychology and
who has at least three years of equivalent training and experience in all of
the areas described below:
(I) assessing
intellectual ability and interpreting tests of such ability;
(II) screening for cultural, emotional, and
motivational factors;
(III)
assessing achievement level; and
(IV) administering tests to measure attention
and concentration, memory, language reception and expression, cognition,
reading, spelling, writing, and mathematics.
(3) Professional verification of
the disability, which shall include a description of:
(A) the nature and extent of the disability,
including a description of its effect on major life activities and the
anticipated duration of the impairment;
(B) the effect of the disability on the
applicant's ability to:
(i) evaluate written
material;
(ii) complete graphic
sections of the examination by drawing, drafting, and lettering; and
(iii) complete computerized sections of the
examination that require data entry via keyboard and the manipulation of a
mouse.
(C) whether the
disability limits the amount of time the Applicant can spend on specific
examination tasks;
(D) the
recommended accommodation and how it relates to the applicant's
disability;
(E) the professional's
name, title, telephone number, and his/her original signature;
(F) any other information necessary, in the
professional's opinion, to enable the exam provider to understand the
examinee's disability and the accommodation necessary to enable the examinee to
demonstrate his/her knowledge, skills, and ability.
(f) Documentation supporting an
accommodation shall be valid for five (5) years from the date submitted to the
Board except that no further documentation shall be required where the original
documentation clearly states that the disability will not change in the
future.
(g) The Board has the
responsibility to evaluate each request for accommodation and to approve, deny,
or suggest alternative reasonable accommodations. The Board may consider an
Applicant's history of accommodation in determining its reasonableness in
relation to the currently identified impact of the disability.
(h) Information related to a request for
accommodation shall be kept confidential to the extent provided by
law.
