How to Develop State Guidelines for Access Assistants: Scribes, Readers, and Sign Language Interpreters

This manual offers states a tool to assist in the development or enhancement of guidelines for access assistants. Whether a state already has guidelines or is just in the process of establishing them, this manual will provide structure to the process and many examples of criteria already included by states. This manual was developed to accompany "Access Assistants for State Assessments: A Study of State Guidelines for Scribes, Readers, and Sign Language Interpreters" (Clapper, Morse, Thompson, & Thurlow, 2005) [ED495887]. The study found 22 states with policies, guidelines, or training materials for one or more types of access assistants and 11 states with policies, guidelines, or training materials describing the qualifications or characteristics of scribes, readers, or sign language interpreters. This manual contains definitions of terms related to access assistants, a description of key features of the design process, worksheets to use, and several examples from states. The following are appended: (1) Chart to Use to Form an Action Team and a Review Team; (2) Statement of Purpose; (3) Compilation of Existing Policies, Guidelines, and Training Materials that Apply to Access Assistants; (4) Ideas for Qualifications and Instructions for Access Assistants: Scribes, Readers, and Sign Language Interpreters; (5) Draft Guidelines; and (6) Questions to Guide Evaluation of Access Assistant Procedures. (Contains 5 tables.)