A battery of psycho-educational tests must be administered to diagnose these criteria. One of these criteria, having average to above-average intelligence, can be determined only through an intelligence test such as the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Scale or the Adult Intelligence Scale - Revised. In order to administer these scales, one needs to be a certified psychologist or have the appropriate credentials.

Many respondents wanted an "assessment tool to identify possible learning disabilities and appropriate instruction." The follow-up report from a psycho-educational assessment battery does not always provide the specific reading strategies that a student needs to learn in order to become a fluent reader. This may be because the assessor is usually a psychologist, rather than a reading specialist. A diagnostic assessment tool, on the hand, is usually an effective means of identifying the cognitive processes a student uses to decode words and comprehend text. This type of assessment can be administered by a reading specialist or an educator. While diagnostic tools do not provide a label, such as "learning disabled," they do provide the information, such as specific strategies, needed to effectively instruct a student. The advantage of a psycho-educational assessment, on the other hand, is that it usually provides learners with the "type of documentation needed to access accommodations in post-secondary environments."

In summary, although the survey respondents wanted an assessment tool capable of diagnosing learning disabilities, it is simply not feasible to invest in its development. This type of diagnosis requires a battery of tests administered by people with the appropriate credentials. There exists, however, a screening tool for adults at risk of possible learning disabilities. It was designed by the Learning Disabilities Association of Canada (LDAC) in the early 1990s and further refined in 1999 in the publication Destination Literacy: Identifying and teaching adults with learning disabilities. This screening tool can be used to predict "the possibility of a learning disability...SAlthough lacking the status of a proper assessment, it is highly practical in identifying an individual's learning style where accommodations in work/educational settings might be appropriate."

Over the past 20 years, I have facilitated dozens of workshops on assessment across the country. Educators in these workshops continually express frustration about being unable to diagnose students who are at risk of being learning disabled. Perhaps, as educators, we need to shift our gaze and reframe our perspectives on this issue.

Rather than focusing on our inability to diagnose learning disabilities, we could shift our gaze to the strategies a student uses for processing print and text. Using a psycho-educational battery to diagnose learning disabilities requires programs to access certified professionals and funding, whereas using a diagnostic assessment to figure out how a student processes print and text simply requires the programs to provide educators with the training they need to administer and interpret diagnostic assessments. Once adult educators have the training and confidence, they can use diagnostic tools to determine a student's learning strengths and challenges, and use this information to develop appropriate instruction.