Guest blog by Mark Miller

The Narrow Straw

I talk to a lot of people who are discovering accessibility for the first time. Usually, it’s some poor person who’s had the WCAG 2.0 guidelines dropped in their lap with cryptic instructions from their boss like, “I think we need to do this to our website.” About ten minutes later my phone rings and I hear, “I don’t know anything about these guidelines but I think I need your help.” That is usually followed by, “it’s so blind people can use our website, right?” It’s at these moments that I struggle with the “narrow straw” through which accessibility is sometimes viewed, but it is an opportunity to broaden their view.  Accessibility helps all people and most acutely those with all types of disabilities.

My experience with Ghotit Real Writer, an assistive technology for people with dyslexia and dysgraphia, has led me to think a lot about how accessible websites help people with dyslexia and other cognitive disabilities. In November the W3C WAI, who publishes the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0), announced that The Cognitive Accessibility Task Force is open to participants, reinforcing the W3C’s current focus on cognitive disabilities. I would like to widen our view of website accessibility by looking at a few ways the guidelines help individuals with dyslexia.

Challenges and Guidelines

The basic challenges of dyslexia are centered on reading but can include overall language skills and verbal comprehension. Because the specific challenges of dyslexia vary, so do the tools and methods people with dyslexia use to overcome the challenges.

One of the tools people with dyslexia will use to help them better read and comprehend writing is similar to that used by a person who is blind or has low vision. That’s right, two completely different disabilities, same technology. We’re talking about technology that will read the content aloud or manipulate it into other forms like large print. Many of the WCAG 2.0 guidelines deal directly with this.

1. Principle 1: Perceivable – Information and user interface components must be presentable to users in ways they can perceive.

• Guideline 1.1 – This guideline requires the provision of “text alternative for any non-text content so that it can be changed into other forms people need such as large print, braille, speech, symbols or simpler language.”

While having content read aloud may help many people with dyslexia, others may benefit from a different approach like larger text or simpler language. They may also benefit from many of the guidelines that fall under Principle 3 of WCAG 2.0.

1. Principle 3: Understandable states, “Information and the operation of user interface must be understandable.”

• Guideline 3.1 Readable, requires making “text content readable and understandable,” an obvious benefit to someone who struggles linguistically.
• Guideline 3.2 Predictable, requires making “Web pages appear and operate in predictable ways,” which is less direct and obvious to Dyslexia but equally important to consider as unpredictable operation is a close kin to poorly structured content and underscores a challenge presented by dyslexia that is not directly related to reading.

Moreover, the W3C has published a Summary of existing research and guidelines in their gap analysis, which outlines further guidelines that should be considered for dyslexia.

The Other Side of the Coin

While there are many more WCAG 2.0 guidelines that help people with dyslexia and other cognitive disabilities, the few we’ve looked at clearly demonstrate the benefits of an accessible website to a person with dyslexia. A product like Ghotit Real Writer provides an unprecedented advantage to a person with Dyslexia, allowing them to participate in things many of us take for granted, like simply sending an email, without fear of embarrassment or with the overhead of relying on someone else to help. But creating content is only one side of the coin. Accessibility is the other side of the coin as it allows that same person to consume the rich content on the web with equal success as someone without a disability. That is something that will not just provide a better experience but allow that individual to be more productive in all their endeavors.

Taking Action

How do you know if your website is accessible? How do you make it accessible if it’s not? Partnering with an expert accessibility consultant is essential if you need to insure you meet the guidelines and have a fully accessible site. In addition, there are some accessibility tools that can help you, although I have to warn you that tools are not a complete answer.  They are helpful, especially in the hands of someone with extensive accessibility knowledge, but they do not find the majority of accessibility issues.

The process for evaluating and fixing a site that is not accessible looks like this:

1. Assess – You will need a good accessibility audit to show you the violations to WCAG 2.0 and other accessibility guidelines
2. Remediate – Once you have the audit it’s time for your developers to go to work fixing the issues. Ask your accessibility consultant about services they may offer to help your developers with the remediation:
   1. Accessibility training
   2. Help desk support
   3. Interim quality assurance audits
   4. Compatibility testing to ensure the product works with assistive technology (the tools that people with disability use to interact with your website)
3. Integrate – Now that you’ve gone through the work of creating a website that is accessible you’ll want to keep it that way and make sure future projects are accessible from the start. You will want to look at the following for your organization:
   1.  Corporate accessibility policies development
   2. Develop best practices and checklists to integrate accessibility throughout the development process
   3. Accessibility certification
   4. On-going accessibility monitoring

When you have an accessible website you can be proud knowing that your efforts don’t just help people with one kind of disability but help all people including those with any number of disabilities.

Author Profile

Mark Miller is the accounts and marketing director for Interactive Accessibility, internationally-recognized experts who provide accessibility services for WCAG 2.0 compliance. He can be reached at 603-580-9110 or [email protected].

From dyslexiahelp.umich.edu

Phonological awareness affects learning to spell

Given that many dyslexics have difficulty hearing the individual sounds in our language—a skill that underlies spelling—many dyslexics have difficulty learning to spell.

The English orthography is derived from many other languages: Greek, Latin, and French to name a few. As a result, many English sounds are spelled more than one way. This makes learning to spell in English more difficult than in other alphabetic orthographies where one sound is represented by only one letter.

Yet, English spelling is rule-governed. It is estimated by some that 90% of English spellings are predictable based on spelling rules and patterns. Yes, there are exceptions to those rules, but there are rules and patterns to teach spelling.

That said, teaching spelling can be challenging. It is helpful to become familiar with morphological structures, roots, affixes, prefixes, and suffixes.

Take a look at this Wikipedia page for a great look at the complex nature of English orthography.

he first step is an assessment of spelling to determine where the breakdown is — at the syllable level, the phonemic level, or the orthorgraphis level. After establishing baseline and goals, a good next step when teaching spelling rules and combinations is to heighten your client’s awareness of his or her spelling strengths and weaknesses. Explain that through teaching he or she will gain a better insight into spelling rules, combinations, and exceptions.

Spelling instruction follows a logical progression that starts with phonemic awareness. If the error analysis demonstrates intact phonological awareness skills, skip right to teaching letter and letter combinations that represent the sounds in our language. In the English language, 44 sounds (phonemes) are represented by 26 letters (graphemes) or letter combinations. It is important to teach your client that when we spell we manipulate the word (i.e. take it apart) into its individual sounds or morphological units and then encode or transform those sounds or units into the letter or letters representing each sound or unit. There is a lot to think about when teaching spelling: syllable structure, spelling rules, homophones, silent letters, suffixes and prefixes, to name a few.

The following is a list of guidelines for teaching spelling:

• As with all therapy or teaching, sessions need to be structured, sequential, and have a logical progression from one target to the next. Lessons should be cumulative, ensuring that new information is introduced only when previously taught material has been fully absorbed.
• In the first or early treatment sessions, make sure the client has a secure understanding of sound-symbol correspondence and letter name knowledge. You may need to begin with phonological awareness tasks – taking words apart at the syllable and sound level.
• Dividing words into syllables can help students identify spelling patterns at the morphological level.
• Limit the introduction of new information to reduce confusion.
• An awareness of morphology should be incorporated into the teaching of spelling from the earliest stages.
• Teaching should encompass the integration of
  • spoken and written language
  • word, sentence, and text-level learning
  • reading and writing skills.
• Do not teach too many spelling patterns within a lesson. For example, you might decide to contrast –tion versus –sion in a lesson. This will require acute attention to the verbal production of “shun” (-tion) as in “production” versus “zhun” (-sion) as in “lesion.” And then, what do you do with “expansion” and “seizure?”

A bit about the exceptions to the rules—A person with dyslexia can be at a disadvantage, particularly when learning the exceptions, not only because of the phonological deficit that underlies the disability, but because of a lack of access to the printed word. One way we learn exceptions to spellings is by being exposed to these words when reading. Given that reading is difficult, the dyslexic will have less exposure to words through the printed form. And, they’ll have less exposure to sophisticated vocabulary.

Therefore, it behooves us to expose the dyslexic to as much sophisticated written text as possible. Text-to-speech programs are an excellent way for the dyslexic to follow along and have the text read out loud. When using books on tape, the individual should always read along with the text. This will give more exposure to spelling patterns, particularly important for learning those exceptions to the rule.

Additionally, seeing the word in print also helps one use Spellcheck. For some dyslexics with more severe spelling problems, the goal may be to become proficient enough that Spellcheck will pick up their errors. But, they still need to know which word from the choices is the one they want. Exposure to the word in print will facilitate this skill.

As noted above, we need to take a systematic approach to teaching spelling.

Although learning to spell (and teaching spelling) may be challenging, it helps to keep in mind that just as with any task (e.g., becoming a football player or learning an instrument), becoming proficient takes hard work and practice. With a systematic approach, the rules, patterns, and anomalies of English spelling can be learned. Success starts here!