A method for providing an assignment acknowledgement includes receiving a forward link overhead channel message at an access terminal (AT), the overhead channel message including parameters used to indicate which shared control channel (SCCH) message data blocks are to be acknowledged by the AT and the timing for transmitting the assignment acknowledgment. The method further includes receiving a forward link SCCH signal having SCCH data blocks, decoding the SCCH data blocks according to parameters provided by the overhead channel message, detecting a change in access terminal assignment for the AT based upon the SCCH signal, and receiving forward link packet data, or transmitting reverse link data packet at the AT via the assigned data channel. Additional operations include identifying an offset which defines that a certain number of subpackets of the packet data have been transmitted before an assignment acknowledgement is to be transmitted, and transmitting the assignment acknowledgement according to the offset to indicate successful decoding of one of the SCCH data blocks only if the packet data has not been acknowledged