The Process: Development of the Revised AHEAD Program Standards and Performance Indicators

In 1999, AHEAD formally approved its first set of Program Standards. The Standards spelled out the services considered essential for ensuring equal access to education for students with disabilities. In addition, the Standards were intended to establish the parameters of what practitioners do as well as assert the credibility and uniqueness of the Office For Students With Disabilities (Jarrow, 1997). The Standard’s utility diminished due to a number of factors, but especially the changing nature of disability services. Thus, a survey consisting of 30 service components and 147 performance indicators was completed by a group of postsecondary disability services experts to get a current look at today’s services. This survey led to the updated AHEAD Program Standards and Performance Indicators, which were formally approved in November 2004. Postsecondary institutions have rapidly expanded their programs and services for students with disabilities during the past 30 years. The Association on Higher Edu-cation and Disability (AHEAD), established in the 1970s as the professional organization representing postsecondary disability service providers, had more than 1,900 members by the end of the 1990’s (Dukes & Shaw, 1999). Though services for college-level students with disabilities expanded throughout the eighties and nine-ties, there were no empirical data upon which to develop model programs until the late 1990s, leaving disability service providers to develop services based upon intu-ition or best guess (Gajar, 1992). Similarly, Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD) personnel have had to make judgments in the absence of firm guidelines or best practice (Dukes & Shaw, 2004). Not surprisingly, there have been many calls in the literature for services that are better planned and organized (Brinckerhoff, McGuire