Part C Procedural Safeguards - Assessing the Understandability, Readability, and Availability to All Caregivers in Early Intervention
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Date
2024-01-09
Authors
Griffin, Madeleine
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
University of Oregon
Abstract
Historically, many caregivers are dissatisfied with their inclusion in their child’s EI services. As a potential solution to this problem, federal law mandates all states to provide parents with a procedural safeguard document. The purpose of this document is to outline the rights of the parent and the child within the EI system. The procedural safeguard notices from all 50 states in the United States, retrieved from states’ EI websites, will be analyzed for this study. The notices were examined for their use of plain language, their readability, and their availability in languages other than English. Additionally, the webpages on which the notices were found were examined for accessibility. Findings indicated that notices were of moderate understandability, availability in other languages and exceedingly low readability. The webpages on which the notices were found varied widely in accessibility. Implications for EI are discussed at the federal, state, and practitioner level.