EIPA Written Test and Knowledge Standards

Education

The Individuals with Education Disabilities Act (IDEA) is a federal law that protects the rights of students with disabilities. IDEA mandates that all students with disabilities receive a free and appropriate education. And, if necessary that education must include a qualified interpreter. The EIPA Written Test is one way to ensure that the student has a qualified interpreter.

One of the specific procedures required by IDEA is the development of a legal document detailing each student’s developmental program. This document is called the Individual Education Plan (IEP). The student’s educational team, including a qualified interpreter, develops the IEP. Other members of the team typically include the student’s family, the general classroom teacher, a speech-language pathologist, the audiologist, an administrator, a deaf educator, and the student when appropriate. Depending on the student, other professionals may be added to the team.

In the area of education, the EIPA Written Test focuses on how familiar the interpreter is with IDEA, IEP, laws and regulations governing the school’s management of the education of students with disabilities, testing and assessment of the student, the responsibilities of state and local agencies, and the specific training and experience that makes an interpreter successful.

Core Standards

Before taking the EIPA Written Test, interpreters should be comfortable with the educational standards used to develop the Education portion of the test. These standards include:

IEP and the Education Team

The interpreter is an essential member of the IEP team. He or she must help to ensure that language and communication needs of the student are met, including opportunities for direct communication and instruction in the student’s identified language and communication mode.

The IEP may specify that additional support services be provided for the student. Such services may include occupational or physical therapy, counseling, note-taking, tutoring, training in the use of assistive technology and help learning to work with an interpreter.

The acronym LRE stands for Least Restrictive Environment. The LRE for each student may differ depending on the student’s skills and abilities, as well as the availability of opportunities for interacting with other students. The most important intent of the concept of LRE is to allow students to be educated in the most appropriate environment for that student. The student’s education team is paramount in helping to determine the most appropriate environment.

IDEA mandates that the IEP is reviewed at least once each year. As a part of that mandate, students who are deaf or hard of hearing must receive a comprehensive communication assessment. Assessments must be conducted in the student’s native language and desired mode of communication.

For some deaf or hard of hearing students, the classroom curriculum must be modified. The educational interpreter should work with the IEP team to understand the modifications that are being made.

Decisions made regarding interpreting must be done so within the context of the educational team. The interpreter’s input on the student’s language use and comprehension should be considered when making modifications regarding how the interpretation is to be conducted.

When interpreting for more than one student, decisions regarding the most appropriate interpreting product must be made within the context of the educational team and may include strategies from experienced educational interpreters from outside the immediate team.

Interpreters should work with the IEP team to understand the student’s current level of functioning and how this should guide their interpreting.

Within the educational team, a decision may be made to modify interpreting in order to support a student’s learning, rather than providing a direct interpretation of classroom content.

School districts typically try to resolve conflicts with families within the school district using the assistance of the educational team. Families who are unable to resolve a conflict with their school district regarding their student’s IEP may request an independent review by a hearing.

Roles & Responsibilities

All the members within a classroom, teachers and students, should understand the roles and responsibilities of the interpreter, and how to interact within the interpreted classroom.

Professionals working with students are required by law to report any suspicion of student abuse.

Interpreters should understand basic concepts regarding disabilities commonly encountered in students, including students who are deaf or hard of hearing.

Some educational interpreters are also asked to tutor as a part of their job. Interpreters should receive additional training in order to tutor. The classroom teacher or teacher of the deaf should supervise all tutoring.

The classroom teacher has the responsibility for educational planning, teaching, and evaluation for all students in the classroom.

All adults who work in a public school have responsibility for behavior management and student safety.

Federal, State & Local Educational Agencies

Local schools operate within a school district. School districts are accountable to the state department of education.

The education of deaf and hard of hearing students is funded with a combination of local tax funding as well as state and federal funding that is specific for students with disabilities. Local school districts must operate within a budget and this can conflict with their federal requirements to provide an education for all students.

A school district’s financial resources are typically related to the income level of the surrounding community.

Schools must follow federal laws and regulations related to education of students with disabilities. All students with disabilities are entitled to a free and appropriate education, even if that requires an interpreter.

The State Education Agency (SEA) has a regulatory role in the education of students in terms of credentialing teachers, establishing minimal standards for curriculum, requiring annual achievement tests. Some states have established minimum standards for educational interpreters.

The Local Education Agency (LEA) is responsible for complying with state and federal requirements. They are responsible for staffing, placement, and delivery of services.

When the State Education Agency does not have minimum requirements for educational interpreters, the Local Education Agency can establish their own.

Educational Assessment and Achievement Tests

Many states require annual academic achievement tests. Often the instructions can be interpreted, but not the actual test. It may be appropriate for an interpreter to interpret a test if the goal of the test is to assess content knowledge and not literacy.

Without annual assessment, it is difficult to know how much progress a student has made.

A major problem with most standardized tests is that they have been developed and standardized with hearing students. Often, some items may not be appropriate for students who are deaf or hard of hearing and may not reflect their underlying abilities.

Achievement tests are used to determine a student’s improvement in reading, writing, and other content subjects.

Criterion-referenced tests use target skills that a student is expected to have mastered by a given age.

Intelligence tests attempt to measure the cognitive abilities and processing strategies of a student. Intelligence tests that use language often underestimate the intelligence of a deaf or hard of hearing student.

Checklists of expected skills are often used in classrooms. Generally these checklists have not been standardized. Therefore, the person completing the checklist must be knowledgeable in order for it to be effective.

Educational Interpreter Judgment

Educational interpreters make judgments about language use with deaf and hard of hearing students based on the educational plan and language expressed by the student and by communication with the educational team, with the goal of an interpreting product that is accessible to the student.

Interpreting a lesson does not necessarily make it accessible.

When interpreting for a hard of hearing student, the interpreter should continue interpreting even if the student chooses to watch the teacher.

When interpreting for a hard of hearing student, it is often the case that the interpreting will be transliterating.

Classroom

Literacy is a major goal of education because it serves as the foundation for learning throughout life. Students use what they know about the world to help them read, and read to learn about the world.

A major goal of Deaf Education is to help a student acquire sufficient language skills to participate in the general curriculum.

A curriculum specifies what a student should learn and the sequence in which it should be taught. There are different philosophies behind different curricula. Interpreters should ask the classroom teacher what her philosophy is and what she expects of students. The interpreter should ask to see the curriculum.

When schools have a large number of students and adults who sign fluently, typical development is more likely to be fostered.

Deaf adults generally agree that students who are deaf or hard of hearing should be educated in an environment that allows free and open communication.

The philosophy of simultaneous communication is a practice in which a person speaks and signs simultaneously, using some form of English signing.

Bilingual education for deaf and hard of hearing students involves ASL as a first language. English is learned through print and not through speech.

A self-contained deaf education classroom is typically a classroom within a public school, but only for deaf and hard of hearing students.

Mainstreaming, or inclusion, typically means that a deaf or hard of hearing student receives his or her education within a general education classroom, often with the use of an interpreter.

Hard of hearing students may need an interpreter in order to access all information in the classroom even though they can obtain some information without an interpreter.

Interpreters may need specialized training in order to appropriately interpret specialized subjects, such as foreign languages, physics, computer programming, etc.