Establishing guidelines for accommodations in clinical
programs is difficult.

There have been a number of efforts here in the States.
Sally Scott co-authored a book on the subject with the
Occupational Therapists Association (I have not got the
citation handy) and Jane Jarrow, a private consultant, has
run an excellent course on-line (described below).

* * * * *


Course description and outline from:
http://www.daisacademy.com/
Technical Standards, Eligibility Criteria, and the ADA
Section A -- Disability Service Providers/Administrators

This course will explore the issues of developing
eligibility criteria and technical standards for college
programs that are both appropriate and legally-defensible
under the ADA. The ten lessons in the program (see outline
below) include immediately practical and eminently readable
information on the most common issues, concerns, and
solutions in working with faculty to develop appropriate
standards/criteria for selection, inclusion, and successful
completion of technical and professional programs. The
development of eligibility criteria and technical standards
has been a recurring topic at institutions of higher
education in the last five years. The ADA requires that
eligibility criteria (and, by extension, technical
standards) not be implemented which screen out, or tend to
screen out, persons with disabilities on the basis of that
disability. The law does not say that technical standards
cannot be applied to persons with disabilities, even if
those standards involve physical requirements that may be
impossible for someone with certain disabilities to meet. It
simply says that the criteria/standards applied must not
focus on disability or on being or not being disabled.
Developing standards/criteria that are based on appropriate
evaluation of necessary skills, rather than historical
precedent, is not always easy -- but is very necessary.

This course takes disability services personnel one step
beyond the traditional discussion of direct service
delivery; it explores a critical element of creating a
campus climate that is conducive to the involvement and
participation of students with disabilities throughout the
institution's educational programming. An architecturally
accessible campus, with a terrific disability support
service office, may still be a dismal experience for a
student with a disability who encounters daunting
attitudinal barriers in the form of eligibility criteria or
technical standards that exclude participation on the basis
of bias or stereotype, no matter how kindly meant. This
course seeks to prepare disability services personnel to
confront such attitudinal barriers with studied argument,
grounded in the legal mandates for access.

TARGET AUDIENCE:
This section of the course is designed for disability
service providers or administrators involved in ADA
compliance on postsecondary campuses (although it might be
appropriate for several folks on the same campus to take the
course together in order to create a broader understanding
of the issues). The course will provide a strategy for
reviewing/critiquing technical standards and eligibility
criteria established for professional/technical/vocational
programs on your campus, as well as suggestions as to how to
help faculty revise such materials, as needed.

TIME COMMITMENT/CEU's:
While this course is offered as an independent study at
other times, during the Fall, 2001 semester the course will
be presented in a "classroom" model, with class
participation through a private listserv. Each lesson will
be accompanied by an assignment to be returned through the
listserv for comment by the instructor and classmates. It is
anticipated that participants will spend at least 15 hours
in the review of lessons, responding to lesson
assignments/critiques, and completing the final assignment
-- a review of a set of technical standards/eligibility
criteria for a program on your campus. (1.5 CEU's)

INSTRUCTOR:

Jane E. Jarrow, Ph.D.
Director, DAIS Academy
President, Disability Access Information and Support

TUITION:
$150.00

COURSE OUTLINE:

Lesson 1
Setting the Stage
Why are eligibility criteria/technical standards a common
"battleground" in higher education,
and why is it so important to get involved in this issue?

Lesson 2
What do "otherwise qualified" and "reasonable accommodation"
mean as applied to technical standards and eligibility
criteria?

Lesson 3
Types of college programs that typically have (or should
have!) standards/criteria in place and the common problems
they pose; type of college programs that DON'T lend
themselves to the development of such standards/criteria

Lesson 4
Common mistakes in framing eligibility criteria or technical
standards

Lesson 5
General arguments made for development of criteria/standards
and for insistence on questionable wording or requirements;
how to combat stereotypes and bias

Lesson 6
Court cases and OCR Letters of Finding dealing with issues
of standards/criteria

Lesson 7
A step-by-step process in analyzing eligibility
criteria/techinical standards

Lesson 8
A special note - the impact of recent Federal Court
decisions on the development of standards/criteria

Lesson 9
Case-in-Point: Casey Martin -- this is what it's all
about!!!
Summary and wrap up

 Jane Jarrow, Ph.D.
Disability Access Information and Support
2938 Northwest Boulevard
Columbus, Ohio, 43221
614-481-9450 V/T 614-481-9451 FAX e-mail:
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