Disability Services' Standards and the Worldviews Guiding Their Implementation.

This paper presents a study that incorporated an Internet survey to analyze disability-related perspectives held by higher education’s disability service providers in the implementation of program standards. Incorporating disability studies scholarship, the quantitative study used the constructs of individual, social, and universal approaches to service delivery as a looking glass. The study’s investigation involved a sample of disability service providers who held a membership in the Association of Higher Education And Disability (AHEAD) during fiscal year 2007. In general, findings indicated participants were more likely to deliver services guided by an individual approach, thereby determining the individual’s “deficit” and accommodating the disability. However, findings also indicated that, to some extent, participants had awareness of and sometimes utilized either social or universal approaches in their service delivery. This manuscript concludes with a discussion of implications for disability studies, disability services, AHEAD, and service professionals. The present study sought to understand perspectives held by higher education’s disability service providers relative to disability and/or students with disabilities and how such perspectives became evident in the implementation of best practices. Although the intention of the Association on Higher Education And Disabilities (AHEAD) standards is to improve the quality of services provided to students with disabilities attending colleges, the standards lack a contextual anchor, permitting the utilization of diverse and antithetical worldviews in their implementation. Using the work of disability studies scholars, three disability worldviews and their applications in the provision of disability services in higher education were considered to explain how these perspectives have maintained the status quo or have re-framed disability. For those reasons, the historical development of disability services, the legislation affecting its development, and also ideas and frameworks developed by disability studies scholars were reviewed. Ultimately, the researcher sought to learn how disability service providers’ perspectives of disability and/or disabled people have percolated into service delivery practices. Disability services in postsecondary education have undergone many changes, including an increase in the population of disabled students from 2.2% in 1978 to 17% in 2000 (Gajar, 1998; National Center for the Study of Postsecondary Educational Supports [NCESPES], 2002), legislative mandates prohibiting discrimination against people with disabilities (Rehabilitation Act, 1973), and the professionalization of disability services (Dukes & Shaw, 1999, 2001; Madaus, 2000; Prize, 1997; Shaw & Dukes, 2001, 2005, 2006; Shaw, McGuire, & Madaus, 1997). In addition to experiencing the stress of rapid growth and change, the provision of disability services in postsecondary education did not enjoy the benefi ts of having standards delineating the essential components for the job. Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act (1973) and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990) did not establish standards or dictate the manner in which disability services in postsecondary education should be implemented. Regardless, the development of such enactments was the result of societal forces, changes in attitudes, legislation, and student advocacy (Madaus, 2000). Meanwhile, disability service providers/researchers have developed standards (Prize, 1997; Shaw & Dukes, 2001, 2005, 2006; Shaw, et al., Guzman, & Balcazar; Disability Services’ Standards and Worldviews 49 1997) as a framework to guide service provision. AHEAD’s standards are a research-based approach of informing stakeholders of the ethical, professional, and programmatic requirements needed to achieve equal access for students with disabilities who are attending higher education institutions (Prize, 1997; Shaw & Dukes, 2001; Shaw, et al., 1997). The standards have provided professionals with clear indicators of the skills needed to do their job and add important elements necessary for both quality service delivery and evaluation. These empirically developed standards have also allowed postsecondary disability service providers to move their profession to a best-practice model, having evolved from one in which an agent was in charge of implementing legislative mandates that did not delineate state-of-the-art services (Brinckerhoff, Shaw, & McGuire, 1993). Disability service professionals do not enjoy the standardized training of other professions and come from a variety of disciplines (Brinckerhoff, et al., 1993; Madaus, 2000). Therefore, standards are necessary to ensure that disability service providers adequately serve students with disabilities (Brinckerhoff, et al., 1993). Brinckerhoff et al. (1993) explain that the creation of standards of best practice could prevent the erosion of legislators’ intentions because courts would be more likely to follow the lead of established professionals at the vanguard of best practice. In addition to these standards, other factors related to participation of students with disabilities in higher education pertain to the passage of federal legislation regarding civil rights and the education of persons with disabilities. Prior to Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, services for students with disabilities were limited to a few institutions. Some of these programs were created in conjunction with vocational rehabilitation services to meet the needs of war veterans with physical disabilities, yet discrimination on the basis of a student’s disability was common (Madaus, 2000). Section 504 was the fi rst civil rights law that challenged the status quo by prohibiting any program receiving federal dollars, including institutions of higher education, from discriminating against “otherwise qualifi ed” individuals with disabilities seeking entrance to such programs (Rehabilitation Act, 1973). Other infl uential legal mandates that further impacted services offered at colleges and universities were the Education for All Handicapped Children Education Act of 1975, commonly known today as Individual with Disabilities Education Improvement Act (IDEA, 2004), and the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990). IDEA (1975) stands as a promise for a free and appropriate public education, using tools such as the Individualized Education Programs (IEP; K-12) and transition plans for all students with disabilities. Adding to the requirements set in these two legislations, and because the discrimination clause was not contingent upon the program receiving federal funds, the ADA broadened the reach of Section 504. However, court decisions, not postsecondary disability service professionals, have continued to redefi ne who is protected by the law, what are essential components of a program, and the role of mitigating circumstances (Madaus, 2000). In addition to the standards and laws created which affect the implementation of services, a discussion of the potential role disability studies could and should play in the provision of services was included. An emerging discipline, disability studies serves to theorize about the experience of disability, using the voices of the individuals living under the oppression of disablement (Abberley, 1987; Oliver, 1990). The discipline considers the environment instead of the impairment in attempting to understand what contributions the environment makes in limiting the ability of individuals to function as active members of society (Hahn, 1985, 1987; Oliver, 1990; Zola, 1989). Both Oliver and Hahn argued that the disadvantages experienced by persons with disabilities are due to conditions (the environment) that reside outside the individual’s body. Therefore, lower socio-economic statuses as well as poor labor force participation are products of a society that continues to marginalize disabled people. Oliver (1996) has explained how disability is a product of our materialist society, one that does not take into consideration the needs of those living with disabilities. Hahn (1985, 1987), like Oliver, emphasized that society is responsible for the disadvantages experienced by persons with disabilities; however, he also argued that the acquisition of civil rights by this group could aid in their emancipation. The acquisition of civil rights should prevent persons with disabilities from being relegated to a subjugated status (Hahn, 1985, 1987). Like Hahn and Oliver, the late sociologist, Irving Zola (1989) argued that disability resulted from the poor fi t between impairments and societal environments. His position reaffi rms the role of the environment and, like Hahn, Zola argued that policies played an important role in the oppression or emancipation of persons with impairments. His greatest point of departure from Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability, Vol. 23, No. 1; 2010 50 Hahn and Oliver was his view that disability is not a dichotomous concept with a person either having a disability or not. Instead, Zola (1989) emphasized that all individuals fall within a continuum that represents all the levels of ability found among human beings – a universal dimension of the human experience. Zola noted that the ranges of ability among humans vary widely and, therefore, society should adopt measures that are universally compatible with those variations. Reframing disability through policies that provide the greatest level of fl exibility possible should prevent the marginalization of individuals falling at the lower end of the ability spectrum. Understanding how these perceptions are refl ected in disability services in higher education could help service professionals determine the implications of their approach. This knowledge allows the service provider to evaluate their own biases and also their personal impact on service provision. Having the means f