(Edyburn, 2004, p. 19)
One interesting trend in post-secondary education is the softening focus on documentation to access academic accommodations to prove accessibility needs or 'disability verification'. This is related to the increase in mental health issues and the academic accommodations that students are seeking and institutions are providing.
The Ontario Human Rights Commission (2017) addressed this issue, stating that colleges and universities "do not require students to disclose their mental health disability diagnosis to register with your Office for Students with Disabilities (OSD), or receive accommodations or supports" (p. 5). This seemed to be a direct cause of a ruling from a human rights complaint filed by a York University student (CBC, 2016) who argued that they should not have to disclose specific mental health diagnosis details. Other provinces have followed suit, relaxing the recency of documentation needed to access services or reducing the need for documentation. There is a slow but sure trend of decreasing reliance on disability verification at the post-secondary level.
This shift could have a profound impact on the way that AT is thought about and used. As UDL principles become embedded in instructional design and as institutions continue moving away from documentation, AT will be positioned perfectly to provide broadly accessible tools for students.
* The projection was based on the proportion of the sum of the number of individuals needing assistive products in each age group to that in the total population in 2050, assuming the same prevalence of need for each age groups as of 2021. A factor of 1.11 (without spectacles) was applied to correct the projected estimates based on observed uncertainty between estimated prevalence in each age group and that in the total population. (Unicef, 2022)
Despite the fact that over a billion people worldwide require AT, there are several barriers preventing those who need it the most from accessing it. The most obvious factors are cost and the lack of consideration given to involving specific individuals in the design and development process. Additionally, there is a prevailing approach to treat assistive technologies as mere add-ons to existing products rather than essential elements for all users.
Lago (2021) argues that the pandemic has brought about a collective shift in the perception of assistive technologies, highlighting that everyone can benefit from these features, such as closed captions or screen readers. Moreover, they contend that as we move into this new phase, "in which even more of our work and human interaction is mediated by technology, ensuring those technologies work for a range of abilities, preferences and perceptual modes will only increase its value" (Lago, 2021).
The objective of universal design is to enhance the inclusivity of disabilities, but the reliance on assistive technology remains essential. Nonetheless, adopting UDL within the design and development process of assistive technologies has the potential to reduce the expansive and specific need for such technology or better yet, "they may serve a wider range or users and the need for additional devices may be reduced" (Story, 1998, p. 10-11).
Incorporating UDL into the design and development process offers several additional benefits on the market, such as:
reduced cost of a device due to greater economies of scale realized by mass production;
greater availability of usable designs that were produced in quantity and marketed through a variety of common channels;
longevity of a device that continues to serve people even as their abilities change;
better reliability of devices that were mass produced;
easier repairability of common devices;
inclusion of a person with a disability in using the same tools as everyone else in the family for everyday activities; and
lack of stigma associated with devices that are used by everyone.
(Story, 1998, p.11)