Dyslexia, Disability and teaching Accessibility
I was reading an article on Accessites on Dyslexia today which went beyond the usual “this is how to make things more readable for people with dyslexia” and actually looked into what dyslexia actually is. One particular thing compared the way that the differences in the language you are learning may be related to your likelihood of developing dyslexia:
For example, it is estimated that the UK has twice as many dyslexics as Italy. This is thought to be due to a difference in complexity between the two written languages. Written Italian has 33 graphemes (written symbols or groups of symbols) for only 25 phonemes (word sounds). Written English has 1,120 graphemes that can represent 40 phonemes. Thus the more complex the written language is, the greater the likely percentage of people who will have difficulty reading it.Mel Pedley
This is a perfectly sound and logical reason when you think about it, it just wasn’t something that had ever occurred to me before. Incidentally, if you read this article in full and have any comments on it, you’re welcome to post them on Mel’s blog.
It struck me however that it just goes to show that whoever you are, and whatever you’ve been doing — and I’m someone who’s written articles on designing for dyslexia in the past — there’s always something new you can learn.
I was also approached by a gentleman from a Local Authority the other week who wanted to know if I’d grant them permission to use stuff from my Disability Equality Duty For Beginners article to help them explain to their schools what they needed to do. Obviously I’m not the source of the legislation or the official information, but it’s nice to know that some off the stuff I’ve done is seen to actually be of practical benefit to some people!
One of the things I’ve always thought is that public awareness of the needs of users with disabilities on the web probably isn’t as high as it should be, and I think it’s about time those of us who are passionate about accessibility tried to help those who’d like to learn more about it!
I think it’s particularly important that those who are learning about web design — those in schools, colleges or universities — are taught about accessibility at the same time, rather than it being seen as some kind of optional “bolt-on” that some people do.
It also seems that I’m not the only one thinking this, judging by a recent comment on Roger Johannson’s article web standards and accessibility training in Sweden
one thing I think you also should do is to try and get out to the schools and universities and speak about those things, since most of the schools still doesn’t teach a thing about these issues (as I’ve experienced myself more than once during my ongoing IT related education). That would be a great way of both making students and teachers more aware of, and interested in, web standards and accessibility. I would love if someone brought these things up in school, and I bet that more people would be interested, once they know something about it. Olof Lönnroth
And he’s right. Schools, colleges and universities should be emphasising to all of their students that accessibility is not an optional bolt-on. It’s an integral part of web design.
To this end, I’ll re-iterate that while I don’t want you copying information from this site without permission, depending on who you are and what you want to use it for, I may be happy to grant permission — go ahead and ask! I’m not guaranteeing I’ll give you permission, but you’re certainly welcome to ask.
As part of my commitment to web accessibility, and my belief that it’s an integral part of web design, and my belief that accessibility should be taught as soon as you’re starting to teach someone how to put anything on the web, I’ve got to be prepared to try and help in this regard, yes? To put my time (if not my money) where my mouth is?
Well, that’s why I’ve got a category devoted to accessibility that you’re welcome to peruse, try to learn from and/or possibly disagree with. That’s also why if people approach me with a question about accessibility, or about re-use of parts of my site, I try to be reasonable and helpful about it. On the flip side, this blog doesn’t make me any money, so I don’t see why it should make you any money either!
If I don’t have exactly what you’re looking for, I might be able to point you in the right direction. Alternatively, if I can’t find the right direction and you’ve asked nicely enough, I might even try to find out and write it up myself. I may even be willing to write an article specifically for your school, college or university, if you ask nicely enough, and there’s not too many of you asking!
dotjay says:
October 25th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Good attitude, Jack. I think the more reliable and open sources of information we can have, the better… with proper attribution for the work, of course.
The current state of courses in the UK seems quite bad. Although, I know GAWDS have been approached by some places running courses for help in improving the courses they run, which is a good sign.
I’m thinking I was right to have done the course I ended up doing, as I think it gave me far more appreciation for accessibility than if I did a Computer Science course or a more specialist Web Design course.
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