Does DIBAL-H reduce carboxylic acids?
Does diisobutylaluminium hydride (DIBAL-H) reduce only carboxylic acids? or  only carboxylic acid esters? or reduce both both types of compounds?

The answer is yes, it does reduce both. Not only them, it also reduces nitriles to aldehydes, and is a more selective reagent than lithium aluminum hydride (LAH) in the reduction of nitriles (Ref.1). About reduction of carbozylic acid, Miller et al. (Ref.1) found that DIBAL-H can be used to reduce benzoic acid to give 72% yields of benzyl alcohol in 1959. In same publication, they have also shown that esters can be reduced to corresponding alcohols as well.

In reduction of nitriles to aldehydes, following results were achieved and compared with the result obtained by Amundsen and Nelson (Ref.2) using $\ce{LiAlH4}$:



The summery of reduction of carboxylic acids and their esters are illustrated in following scheme, where two different groups (Ref.1 &amp; Ref.3) achieved two different results for ester reduction under different conditions:





References:


A. E. G. Miller, J. W. Biss, and L. H. Schwartzman, “Reductions with Dialkylaluminum Hydrides,” J. Org. Chem. 1959, 24(5), 627–630 (DOI: 10.1021/jo01087a013).
L. H. Amundsen, L. S. Nelson, “Reduction of Nitriles to Primary Amines with Lithium Aluminum Hydride,” J. Am. Chem. Soc. 1951, 73(1), 242–244 (DOI: 10.1021/ja01145a082).
L. I. Zakharkin, I. M. Khorlina, “Reduction of esters of carboxylic acids directly into aldehydes with diisobutylaluminum hydride,” Tetrahedron Letters 1962, (14), 619-620 (https://doi.org/10.1016/S0040-4039(00)70918-X).