Solutions for the Accessibility Community
At Design Science, we believe math can and should be made accessible. The
unfortunate reality, however, is that virtually all math in educational content
and assessments is not accessible to many students with disabilities. We believe
this is a problem that needs fixing and that it can be fixed. We are committed to working with the accessibility community to make math fully accessible
in the next few years.
The current state of math skills of the nation's 6.5 million
students with disabilities has become a critical issue for America's public
schools. Learn about the extent of this problem, and why math accessibility is important to solving it.
The concept of accessibility to mathematical information for people with
disabilities may be new to some. Learn about the basic concepts of math
accessibility, and how it strives to make mainstream educational content
universally designed to meet the needs of all students.
Although making mathematics accessible may be more
difficult than making plain text accessible, many of the issues
underlying accessible math can be solved through using MathML technologies.
Learn how MathML is an important technology in math accessibility.
Design Science is involved in a number of activities in this area: the World Wide
Web Consortium, the DAISY Consortium and the NIMAS Development Committee, and
our research and development activities supported by funding from the National
Science Foundation.
Design Science has developed a number of products that can help make math
accessible. Learn how to create universally designed accessible math content, how to allow people with disabilities to read and write math,
product features that allow better access and usability, and
access to product VPATs outlining product compliance with Federal Section 508 Accessibility
Standards.
There are a growing number of assistive technology applications that support
accessible math. Find out about AT products that can help you access math.
Education policy needs to be developed which provides for full support of
accessible math instruction and assessment. Learn about the need for math
accessibility requirements in textbook adoption, assessment administration and
software selection policy, and some of the legal mandates applicable to math
accessibility policy.
Design Science has partnered with ETS
on a three year
Institute of Education Sciences development grant to significantly improve
accessibility of mathematical content in the classroom. The three main areas of
focus are improved speech, the ability to navigate larger math equations, and to
allow math to be read in Word documents. To learn more about these efforts and
the progress we've made, see the grant status
pages.
Whether you are a classroom teacher, a school district or state education
administrator, a publisher, an assistive technology vendor, a parent, or a
person with disability, there are things you can do to help make math
accessible. Learn how you can get involved in making sure that math
accessibility solutions are available to everyone.
Here you will find announcements and news items that should be of interest to
the math accessibility community.
We have compiled a few of the most comprehensive resources for those who
would like to explore additional information. Learn about other sources of
information on the web about accessible math technologies and techniques.
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