A side issue related to this topic are the accessibility standards that are supposed to be used in website design and how most websites are completely inaccessible to the visually and the hearing impaired, even though they need not be. Many companies find it to be too much work to edit each and every page of their website. But there will come a day when it is illegal to operate a website without proper accessibility, just as it is illegal to operate a business without an accessibility ramp. The W3C, World Wide Web Consortium, has developed standards for web developers to follow to allow the latest assistive technologies to work properly. You can check out their Web Accessibility website here: http://www.w3.org/WAI/. 

Then there is also the issue that Susan mentioned of designers not wanting people to be able to adjust the font of their browser and such, because such adjustments would wreak havoc on their artistic control.

Craig
----------------------------------------------------
Craig Alinder
Escuela del Sol Montessori
1114 Seventh St. NW
Albuquerque, NM 87110
http://www.loancentralstation.net 
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Dave L Edyburn" <edyburn at uwm.edu>
To: <technology at nifl.gov>
Sent: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 7:54 PM
Subject: [Technology 547] Issues: Assistive Technology and Reading



> Historically, reading was a perceptual/sensory/cognitive processing task.

> When disease, age, or impairment interfered with the various subprocesses,

> reading performance was negatively impacted. For thousands of years, there

> was no single technology that could compensate for a reading impairment.

> As a result, individuals suffered the effects of their inability to read.

> As we know, the costs are great at both the personal and society level.

> Some individuals learned to accommodate their reading disability by

> becoming an auditory learner. Others relied on having  someone read to

> them. Successful accommodations often masks a reading problem.

> 

> An interesting case study in the area of assistive technology and reading

> involves the widespread acceptance and use of eye glasses. Seldom do eye

> glass users consider their glasses as assistive technology. However, they

> fully recognize the fact that their reading performance is better when

> then use their glasses then when they try to read without them. This

> example poses an interesting quandary: Why do we discriminate between

> different forms of assistive technology in what we consider allowable?

> That is, why do some people get to use eye glasses while we prevent others

> from using scan and read technologies?

> 

> Over the past 5-10 years the marketplace has made significant advances in

> the nature of assistive technology devices that are now available.

> Unfortunately, the field of reading has been slow to acknowledge that

> technology could/should be used to compensate for impairments that limit

> functional performance. As a result, existing technologies force us to

> consider some difficult issues. Unfortunately, we lack principles,

> frameworks, research evidence, metaphors, and experience to guide our

> thinking and deliberations about the use of technology to enhance

> functional reading performance. 

> 

> Allow me to outline a few issues that may serve as discussion starters:

> 

> --How much evidence do we need that an individual is struggling to achieve

> the developmental milestones on the journey of becoming a successful

> reader? When do we supplement our instructional efforts with compensatory

> technologies that bypass the decoding aspects of reading and allow

> struggling readers to focus on the comprehension components and

> application of new information?

> 

> --How much evidence of change (i.e., enhanced performance) do we need to

> see in order to deem an assistive technology successful? It is sufficient

> that a struggling adult reader simply likes completing reading tasks with

> a specific assistive technology? Or, if we notice more time spent engaged

> in reading is that enough evidence to support the provision of assistive

> technology? Or, do we expect achievement gaps to significantly close?

> 

> --Many people will argue that listening to a text is not the same as

> reading a text. They suggest that the media shift that occurs when print

> is converted into auditory formats (e.g., books vs. audio books; text vs.

> text to speech) involves different cognitive processes and should not be

> considered equivalent to what is called reading. I wonder if this means

> that when someone uses cruise control on the highway that we can longer

> say they are driving (i.e., should we say they are steering?).

> 

> --Dependency. Often we decline to consider assistive technologies because

> we are worried the individual will become dependent on the tool. Is this

> concern misplaced? For example, do experienced writers give up their word

> processor? Should roofers give up their electric nail guns? Should the

> priority delivery person give up their bar code reader? Should cashiers

> foresake their scanners and cash registers? How do we clarify the

> relationships between an individual, a task, a tool and functional

> performance?

> 

> --Bias. How we define reading must be carefully considered. Hehir (2005)

> has noted that "ableism" is an insidious form of discrimination that

> creates barriers for individuals with disabilities based on the cultural

> attitudes of the able-bodied. For example, he observes that most people

> value intrinsic spelling ability and devalue the performance of those

> individuals who rely on spelling checkers. When reading is defined as an

> organic process (perceptual/sensory/cognitive processing), there is no

> role for assistive technology. Therefore, individuals that use text to

> speech technologies can not be called readers because they rely on an

> external aid.

> 

> --Measurement Constructs. Much of the current controversies associated

> with reading assistive technologies in K-12 schools is grounded in notions

> of assessment. We design tests and policies about accommodations that

> permit assistive technology in the form of eye glasses but ban assistive

> technology in the form of text to speech products. We believe raw unaided

> performance is a more robust measure of reading performance and thus

> institutionalize discrimination against individuals that have impairments

> in the perceptual/sensory/cognitive processing that interfere with the

> completion of the task in the same ways as their nonhandicapped peers. How

> should the use of technology supports be normed in test development in

> ways that produce reliable and valid measures of readers using reading

> assistive technologies?

> 

> --Limited research base for informing practice. The research on adult

> users of reading assistive technologies is very limited. As a result, we

> know little about whether struggling adult readers will use assistive

> technology. Similarly, we know little about the long term effect of

> reading assistive technologies by struggling adult readers.

> 

> --The cost of not being able to read. Given what we know about the

> economic consequences of not learning to read, at what point does it

> become good public policy to purchase scan and read systems so that

> individuals can process information at levels comparable to their

> nonhandicapped peers? If an individual who can not read begins to believe

> they can not learn, do we need any more evidence about the value of a

> social investment in reading assistive technologies to justify the cost?

> 

> The issues outlined here are a small sample of the many important

> questions that must be answered about the use of assistive technology and

> reading. Indeed, considerably more work is needed in this very important

> area in order to allow adult struggling readers to have equal access to

> the marketplace of ideas that are currently stored in print formats just

> beyond their reach.

> 

> References

> 

> Hehir, T. (2005). New directions in special education: Eliminating ableism

> in policy and practice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard Educational Publishing

> Group.

> 

> 

> 

> ----------------------------------------------------

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