Psychological/Psychiatric

Psychological/psychiatric conditions refer to disturbances in emotions and/or behavior that cause clinically significant distress and interfere with adaptive functioning, including vocational and/or social functioning.

For Test Takers

All requests for accommodations for ABIM examinations based on a psychological/psychiatric condition should include the following pieces of documentation:

1. A completed accommodations request form (pdf).
2. A signed Verification and Release Form.
3. A personal statement containing the following. (You can use the request form above to complete your personal statement.)
   • Your name and contact information
   • Title of the exam for which you are requesting an accommodation
   • Description of the specific accommodation you are requesting 
   • Description of any alternative accommodations.
   • Description of the nature of your impairment, including:
   • When it was first identified or diagnosed
   • When it was last evaluated and/or treated
   • The name of the professional who evaluated and/or treated the condition
   • How your impairment is accommodated in your daily life
   • A list and, where applicable, documentation of past accommodations you have received for standardized testing or in academic settings. If you have received no previous accommodations, then you should provide an explanation for why no accommodations have been received in the past and why accommodations are necessary now.
4. A professional report confirming the presence, nature and extent of your impairment and the need for specific accommodation. Professional reports should be by a qualified and licensed/certified professional with specific and appropriate expertise evaluating adults with the impairment that you have. See the “For Evaluators” section below for details of what the professional report should contain.
5. A comprehensive psychological evaluation conducted by an appropriately qualified professional. The evaluation should include objective psychometric test procedures and have been performed within the past five years. See the “For Evaluators” section below for details of what the evaluation should contain.

Note: Past failure of ABIM examinations does not, in and of itself, constitute objective evidence of a functional limitation due to a disability.

For Evaluators

Your professional report should include:

• Your name, address and phone number 
• Your area of specialty/expertise
• Description of the specific functional limitations caused by the test taker's impairment that require accommodation
• Description of the accommodations recommended by you
• Description of the history of treatment and/or rehabilitation efforts that the test taker has received for their impairment
• Documentation addressing whether the test taker’s impairment substantially limits one or more major life activities within the meaning of the ADA
• Objective evidence of functional limitations:
  • A list of all standardized test instruments and assessment procedures used to diagnose and evaluate the functional impact of the test taker's impairment
  • Date(s) of assessments and/or treatment contacts upon which your report and opinions are based

Your comprehensive psychological evaluation should include objective psychometric test procedures and have been performed within the past five years. It should include:

• A history and clinical interview addressing the course of the condition, including fluctuations in severity and periods of remission.
• A comprehensive and complete assessment of aptitude. The recommended evaluation procedure is the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale-Fourth Edition (WAIS-IV) because abbreviated measures such as the Wechsler Abbreviated Scale of Intelligence-Second Edition (WASI-II) do not provide a complete picture of the individual's relative strengths and weaknesses in order to assess functional impairment.
• Attention and memory assessments utilizing an age-normed, standardized instrument assessing both verbal and nonverbal memory such as the Wechsler Memory Scale-Fourth Edition (WMS-IV).
• A comprehensive assessment of affected mental capacities including, for example, tests of mental speed and flexibility such as the Trail Making Test and tests of executive function such as evaluation by the Delis-Kaplan Executive Function System.
• A comprehensive assessment of academic skills and achievement, including assessment of affected functions such as reading, reading speed, and reading comprehension test, such as the Nelson-Denny Reading Test.
• A comprehensive, psychometric assessment of personality and emotional functioning that contains built-in validity measures, including quantitative measures of emotional functioning, such as Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory-2 (MMPI-2) or Personality Assessment Inventory (PAI). Additional quantitative measures such as the Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) are also suggested.
• Test scores, in the form of standard scores and percentiles. All scores should be based on appropriate age norms, except in the case of a test for which no age norms are available. For tests that only have grade-based norms, scores should be provided for first year college norms, as well as the norms based on the test taker's current grade.
• A specific diagnosis based on standard, accepted diagnostic nomenclature and supported by the history and objective test data.