Preparing to teach

Podcast:  Think UDL Podcast

• Transcripts for all episodes available

Accessibility:

According to the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights: 

“Accessible means a person with a disability is afforded the opportunity to acquire the same information, engage in the same interactions, and enjoy the same services as a person without a disability in an equally effective and equally integrated manner, with substantially equivalent ease of use. The person with a disability must be able to obtain the information as fully, equally and independently as a person without a disability. 

Although this might not result in identical ease of use compared to that of persons without disabilities, it still must ensure equal opportunity to the educational benefits and opportunities afforded by the technology and equal treatment in the use of such technology.”

Access needs:

Anything you require of your community or environment in order to participate fully, healthfully, and meaningfully. Regardless of disability status, we all have access needs. 

Some examples include:

• Patience while learning names and faces

• Frequent stretching or snacking breaks

• Time to process before responding

• Visual descriptions that don’t only rely on color

• Distance from scented products or certain foods (e.g. tree nuts)

Accommodation:

From UCLA’s Center for Accessible Education (CAE): 

“An accommodation is a legally mandated modification or service designed to mitigate the functional limitations associated with a student's disability. Accommodations can be:

• Changes to a classroom environment or task that permit a student with a disability to participate in the educational process,

• Reasonable modifications to policies, practices or procedures, etc.”

Alt text:

Alternative text—or alt text—describes visuals. Embedded in code, alt text is not visible; screen readers voice this image description aloud to blind and low-vision users. Folks with certain cognitive disabilities also benefit from screen readers.

Alt text is different from a caption, which appears near an image, and from longer image descriptions, which are also visible to sighted people. 

Audio description:

Audio description is spoken narration of visual elements during live performances and pre-recorded television and film.

Optical Character Recognition (OCR):

Optical character recognition is the process by which images of handwritten or printed text is converted into a digital format that allows it to be selected, copied, read aloud by screen readers, and  searched.

Disability:

Legal definition from the Americans with Disabilities Act: 

• “a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more of the major life activities of such individual; a record of such an impairment; or being regarded as having such an impairment."

Throughout history, disability has been considered:

• A tragedy

• A punishment

• A crime (learn about the “ugly laws”)

• A divine intervention

• An inspiration

• A cultural identity

How do you describe disabled people… or people with disabilities?

Like proper name pronunciation and personal pronouns, it’s best to ask people how they identify instead of making assumptions. Trends change, and there’s no consensus around describing identities. 

Some folks argue for people-first language to prioritize the person over their physical or mental conditions. People-first language tends to reflect a medical model of disability. Examples of people-first language include:

• “People with disabilities”

• “Individual who is blind”

• “Student with autism”

However, other folks argue for identity-first language and consider disability as a cultural identity. Members of the signing Deaf community and autistic people tend to use identity-first language. 

Examples of identity-first language include:

• “Disabled people”

• “Blind individual”

• “Autistic student”

Here at UCLA, the student organization is called the Disabled Student Union (DSU) and not the Students with Disabilities Union.

Here are some additional guidelines to consider:

“Disabled” is not offensive. Use it rather than euphemisms like “differently-abled” or “handi-capable.” 

Use: Disabled or accessible parking space; accessible restroom stall

Not: Handicapped 

Not: Crippled

Use: Deaf and hard of hearing

Not: Hearing-impaired or challenged

Not: deaf and dumb

Not: deaf mute

Not: afflicted by

Not: suffers from

Not: wheelchair-bound or confined to a wheelchair

Talk to the person directly and not to their aid or interpreter

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

For more, see Identity-First Language by Lydia X. Z. Brown