Web Accessibility: Advanced Topics II - Copyright

Copyright!  My favorite!  It is the most commonly relied upon, and least understood, intellectual property right that we have in the US.  Everyone thinks that copyright law defends any and all uses of digital media, and that once you buy something (or, heck, rip it online), it's yours.

(Sidebar:  NO!  It's not!  You cannot "borrow" music files from ZenMaster201!  You cannot rip your own ringtones!  Fair use is a BAD defense!!!)

Ok, let's back up, now that I've gotten that out of my system.  For our purposes, here's a very brief summary of copyright law: The author of a original work is entitled to the copyright rights for that work - the right to reproduce, modify, create derivative works, distribute, and publicly perform the work.  These rights arise from the creation of the work (you don't necessarily have to register the work, or file it, like you would for a patent or federal trademark).  No one can modify your work without a license from you, unless they have a defense.  "Fair use" is such a defense - this is essentially the right to quote an article, or to parody a song, or to make scholarly comment on a book.  It helps your case if you're not commercially profiting from your use of the copyrighted work, and if your use of the work is small in comparison to the work as a whole.

Weekly News Roundup - Frontier flight gone wrong

Hey folks,

Last week's news roundup was pretty weighty, with the Arc's disability supports report, and the WHO's report on international incidence of disability (still plowing through that one myself!).  Nothing quite as big this week, but just one story that reminds me of how much further we have to go in our collective respect for those with disabilities.

Frontier Flight Gone Wrong. This past Sunday, a young man named John Morris who is quadriplegic was not permitted to stay on a Frontier flight from Dallas to Denver because the pilot thought it "unsafe" to permit him to stay.  The excuse was that since he had limited upper body control, it would be unsafe for him to fly.  Nevermind that there was no problem with his flight from Denver to Dallas two days earlier - John had simply used the seat belt extension that the airline carries to secure his chest, and he was traveling with two companions who were quite familiar with his needs.

In the discussion that followed, several passengers overheard Frontier employees saying that company products couldn't be used as medical devices.  (Wha?)  And so these passengers volunteered their own belts or whatever they could to help John.  That was rejected.  Instead, the pilot called the local police!  No really!  The police talked to everyone, concluded it was not a police matter, and told the pilot.  Pilot still refused to take off with John on the plane.   Finally, John and his family left the plane and boarded a later flight.

Repercussions for the pilot?  Zero.  Repercussions for Frontier (so far)?  Zero.

This kind of intolerance is unacceptable.  If you agree, let Frontier know, and vote with your feet.  You can file a complaint here.

Why Attorneys are Helpful (sometimes!)

I recently discovered a study that analyzed outcomes in due process hearings in Illinois, and whether or not outcomes were correlated with the parent having an attorney (the school board always has an attorney).

Dr. Melanie Archer looked at approximately 350 due process hearings in Illinois between 1997-2002.  The first thing to note is the relatively low rate of due process hearings compared to the overall number of children receiving special education services (about 300,000) - that's less than 0.2%.  So the next time a school district attorney complains about how special education is the "next big litigation explosion", take it with a grain of salt.

And then there's the question of outcomes - who wins?  Not the parents!  Parents lose 70% of the time. Twenty hearing officers made between 4 and 28 decisions during this time, with some officers never finding in favor of parents.

Welcome to Holland.

Today, I want to repost an essay I just found by Emily Perl Kingsley.  It seems to be quite well known in the disability community, but it was new to me and I want to share it more broadly.

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I am often asked to describe the experience of raising a child with a disability - to try to help people who have not shared that unique experience to understand it, to imagine how it would feel. It's like this......

When you're going to have a baby, it's like planning a fabulous vacation trip - to Italy. You buy a bunch of guide books and make your wonderful plans. The Coliseum. The Michelangelo David. The gondolas in Venice. You may learn some handy phrases in Italian. It's all very exciting.

After months of eager anticipation, the day finally arrives. You pack your bags and off you go. Several hours later, the plane lands. The stewardess comes in and says, "Welcome to Holland."

"Holland?!?" you say. "What do you mean Holland?? I signed up for Italy! I'm supposed to be in Italy. All my life I've dreamed of going to Italy."

But there's been a change in the flight plan. They've landed in Holland and there you must stay.

The important thing is that they haven't taken you to a horrible, disgusting, filthy place, full of pestilence, famine and disease. It's just a different place.

So you must go out and buy new guide books. And you must learn a whole new language. And you will meet a whole new group of people you would never have met.

It's just a different place. It's slower-paced than Italy, less flashy than Italy. But after you've been there for a while and you catch your breath, you look around.... and you begin to notice that Holland has windmills....and Holland has tulips. Holland even has Rembrandts.

But everyone you know is busy coming and going from Italy... and they're all bragging about what a wonderful time they had there. And for the rest of your life, you will say "Yes, that's where I was supposed to go. That's what I had planned."

And the pain of that will never, ever, ever, ever go away... because the loss of that dream is a very very significant loss.

But... if you spend your life mourning the fact that you didn't get to Italy, you may never be free to enjoy the very special, the very lovely things ... about Holland.

c1987 by Emily Perl Kingsley. All rights reserved


Here's the original link

Weekly News Roundup - Arc Survey, WHO Report, and a TV show with a silly premise

Big news week, actually!  Let's dive right in.

ARC Report on Disability Supports:  The ARC is a great non-profit organization that focuses on improving and supporting the lives of people with intellectual or developmental disabilities (commonly shortened to I/DD).  This week, they released the results of a survey of 5000 individuals with I/DD and their family members about everything from employment and educational opportunities to family and local supports.  The full report is on the ARC website here.

The results were a little discouraging.  While progress has definitely been made - witness the closure of state mental institutions, for one thing - we are falling short in supporting individuals with I/DD.  Here are just some of the reported stats:

• 52% of families reported that their family member with I/DD left school without receiving a high school diploma, including 10% that never finished high school.
• Only 8% report having any college level experience
• 4 out of 10 parents report being dissatisfied with the quality of education their students with I/DD received in primary/middle (40%) or high school (38%).
• 85% of families reported that their adult family members with I/DD were not employed, either part-time or full-time.
• 58% of parents/caregivers report spending more than 40 hours per week providing support for their loved one with I/DD, including 40% spending more than 80 hours a week.
• 1 out of 5 families (20%) report that someone in the family had to quit their job to stay home and support the needs of their family member.
• More than 75% of families report they can’t find afterschool care, non-institutional community services, trained reliable home care providers, summer care, residential, respite and other services.
• 62% of families report that services are being cut in the community, limiting or eliminating access to community life and opportunities for their family member with I/DD.
• One-third (32%) of parents/caregivers report that they are on waiting lists for government funded services, with an average wait of more than five years. They are waiting for personal assistance, respite, housing, therapy, employment supports, transportation and more.

Given this situation, the ARC has issued a call for action to all of us.  We need to publicly support individuals with I/DD - support their inclusion in the community, education, and workplace opportunities.  We need to vote. 

World Health Organization Survey on Disabilities: For the first time since the 1970s, an NGO tried to determine the incidence of disabilities world-wide.  The WHO survey states that about 15% of the world population (about 1 in 7, or, 1 billion people) lives with some kind of disability.  Their disability categories included individuals with difficulties seeing, hearing, walking, remembering, taking care of themselves or communicating. Worldwide, the most common disability in people under the age of 60 is depression, followed by hearing and visual problems.

That's pretty similar to the 1 in 6 figure recently estimated by the CDC.  So while data collection and reporting may be imperfect (especially across international boundaries), at least it seems in the right ballpark.

In the forward to the report, Stephan Hawkings offered the thought that we, society, have a moral obligation to remove barriers to participation for individuals with disabilities.  After all, the chances are that all of us, at some point in our lives, will be disabled, temporarily or otherwise.  (Picture progressive vision or hearing loss; a temporary mobility problem; menopausal memory loss).  I'm not sure we're going to get very far towards social change, however, with a moral argument.

I'm hoping that there are economic or other arguments in the report.  Since it's 350 pages long, I haven't had a chance to fully digest it yet.  I'm sure I'll be posting more about it.

Switched at Birth: Ok, this TV show (on ABC Family) has the worst name, and the silliest premise of pretty much any show on TV right now.  You guessed it - it's about two families where the daughters were (drumroll) switched at birth!  Ugh.  However, it is oddly well done, and the reason I mention it here is that one of the daughters is deaf.  So she and her non-birth-mother-who-raised-her are fluent signers, she goes to a deaf school, and her best friend is deaf.  It's the first time I've ever seen people using sign on TV, and I think it's just great. 

You can download the first two episodes from iTunes for free, if you missed them.

And in personal news, I got my echo LiveScribe pen!  I am so excited to start making audio books for Siobhan.  I will let you know how it works out.

The Montessori Method for Special Needs Kids

From my posts lately, you might be justified in assuming that I think technology will solve every ill in our educational system.  Just to clarify: I don't think it will.  New technologies like e-readers, and the iPad, and the LiveScribe pen *could* change the classroom model, support inclusion and diverse learning styles, and drive a universal design for learning (UDL) approach.  But it will require flexible thinking and a willingness to change the status quo, support from school administrators, and changes to teacher training, both for teachers already on the job and those obtaining their education degrees.

Even without the latest gadgets and toys, however, classrooms can embrace the principles of UDL using a time-honored, well-researched approach - the Montessori Method.  One could almost consider Maria Montessori to be the earliest UDL proponent.  She was an educator, an advocate, and a researcher in children's education, primarily in Italy in the early part of the 20th century.

There are some great on-line resources that explain the Montessori method, which you can check out here and here.  (Which I would recommend you do, because I am not Montessori trained and certainly don't want to misrepresent the program).  Basically, the core idea is respect for the individual child, and her interests, pace of development, and ability to succeed.  A Montessori classroom is organized at the child's level, with appropriately sized worktables and tools (like sinks), and is designed to be a calm, home-like environment.  Montessori materials (or "work") are designed to engage all the senses.  Research has shown that kids who attend Montessori preschools are better prepared, and possibly even ahead of their peers in reading and math skills, for elementary school.

For kids with special needs, though, I think the Montessori approach has particular power.  Here's a non-exhaustive list of attributes of the approach that I think are great for such children:

LiveScribe! The Greatest Learning Tool since the Protractor!!

I stole that line from the presenter at the assistive technology conference I went to last week.  But it is TRUE!  And you know how much I love the iPad, so the LiveScribe pen has a lot to live up to.

Ok, here's the link to the website for LiveScribe, which provides some visuals and details about what the pen actually is.  Think of it as a smartpen, like your iPhone is a smartphone.  It really is a pen, with ink, used on paper - but it's also a mini computer, with incredible functionality.  When you use the pen on the LiveScribe paper and press the "record" icon on the paper, the pen starts recording the audio and tracks it to the notes you're taking.  Later, you can tap any of your notes and the audio that was recorded at the time you made that note will start playing.  You can also sync the pen with your desktop, and save the notes and audio on the computer.  And THEN you can email it, share it on Facebook, create a PDF of the notes.....pretty remarkable.

Its initial intended use was probably the high school/college student taking lecture classes and writing down copious notes.  Having the playback feature would be helpful to any highschooler, but probably critically helpful to kids who have trouble taking notes and listening to lectures at the same time (e.g., kids with executive function issues, or auditory processing disorders, etc.).  One could envision a peer notetaker using the device in class, and then giving his notes and pen to the student with special needs.  What a great device to support inclusion in the classroom!

What I find *really* exciting, though, are the potential uses of the pen for kids in preschool and elementary school.  They're not taking notes during a lecture - but they are learning to read and spell.  For this age group, the pen seems most effective in the hands of the teacher or therapist. You know how preschools and kindergarten walls are covered in words and maps?  Well, the teacher can draw dots on the LiveScribe paper, cut the paper dots out, and paste them next to each word, or perhaps on a location on a map.  The teacher can then "load" the dot with relevant audio - perhaps just saying the word, perhaps providing the definition of the word.  Later, with the pen (that created the dots), a student can tap the dot and hear the audio.

I mean, whoa!  This whole dot thing has SO many possibilities.  You can make ANY book an audio book, simply by pasting in a dot and loading it with audio of the words on that page.  A SLP could make an articulation worksheet, have the child practice drills, and then review the audio later.  Another use is that a child's speech support team at school could record the child's articulation, and then provide the data to the parents that night.  (Think of the disputes that could be avoided, if everyone is accessing the same objective data!)

Then you have the possibility of the teacher creating "pencasts".  Here, a math teacher, say, would use the pen and paper and record a lesson.  Then, she could upload the notes and audio, and provide the link to her students.  This could be used in a flipped-classroom model (like the Khan Academy, where the lectures are the "homework" and problem sets are done in the classroom), or, as extra support on topics that multiple kids find challenging.

The potential cost savings to school districts is remarkable.  The pen comes in three different models, with different levels of memory (kind of like the iPad), and the prices ranges from $99-$199.  The paper is $20 for a pack of 4 notebooks, which isn't bad, especially if you think about how many dots you can draw on a single page. 

And the sheer number of technologies that the LiveScribe system can replace is astonishing.  The pen, paper, and a document camera can be used to replace overhead projectors and Smart Boards (which cost thousands of dollars.)  Second, as I've mentioned before, a LiveScribe pen can replace adult notetakers assigned to support a specific child.  Third, there's really no need for special software/computers to make tests accessible to kids with motor difficulties - teachers can create accessible tests in 2 minutes using the LiveScribe pen.

I think this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to how this pen can be used to support kids - both typical and special needs - in the classroom and enable their academic success.  And I'd love to hear other ways that people are using the LiveScribe pen creatively, either in the classroom or otherwise. 

And no, I didn't get a free LiveScribe pen for writing this.  Sigh.  But I would gladly, gladly take one.

Weekly News Roundup - NY Times Expose, Time

Maybe I should call this the bi-weekly news roundup, but that doesn't have the same ring!

The big news this week was the  NY Times expose on abuses in institutions for the developmentally disabled.  It's appalling on so many levels - on the order of "this can't be happening today".  But it is.  If you haven't seen any of the coverage, check out the article - but only if you're already having a bad day.  If you're having a good day, save it for another time when you're already in a bad mood.

Time did a piggy-back piece, also depressing and a read-it-at-your-own-risk.  The author had an interesting angle, though, on the issue of power and authority, and likened what's been happening at institutions to some of the famous psychological experiments (Stanley Milgram, the Stanford Prison Experiment). 

Ok, let's find some happy news, can we? Mmmm, let's see, school budget cuts; various school districts are being accused of mishandling school vouchers for kids with disabilities; parents of kids with autism exhibit stress symptoms akin to combat soldiers (no really).....Well, this is a bit of a stretch, but I do like his work, and I do intend to post about his schools - take it away, Andre! Agassi's Charter Schools

AACs, and Social Skills, and Organization, oh my!

I've been attending an assistive technology conference this week, and man, I am so excited about the new technologies that can help our kids learn SO much and in such a variety of ways.

Wednesday's focus was the iPad, which all of you know, I am obsessed with (sorry, "with which I am obsessed").  I was really encouraged by the speaker, who had years of experience using an iPad with kids with language disorders and autism - and by the audience, largely comprised of school administrators, OTs, PTs, and SLPs.  How great would it be if schools got behind the iPad phenomenon?

Again, not to be a broken record, but what I love about the iPad is how customizable it is - and how affordable.  I want to run through some of the categories of apps that you might not have thought of as helpful to kids with special needs, as well as some of those that are specifically designed for speech, literacy, learning, and other difficulties.

And just as an FYI, I am a cheapskate, so I don't like to spend much money, if any, on apps.  A lot of the ones I've tried are free, but then again, some of the coolest ones require $3 or $4.  Pretty manageable (heck, that's 1/16th of one of Siobhan's speech therapy sessions!)

Special Education 201: What does FAPE really mean?

Since my earlier posts on Special Education law covered the really basic stuff,  this post will cover the next level up: What the heck is FAPE?

The actual text of the IDEA, and even the accompanying regulations, are (deliberately?) vague on this point.  After passage of the law, schools and parents disagreed on what FAPE even was, let alone whether or not it was being provided.  Is FAPE meant to bring kids with special needs up to the level of their peers - to even the playing field, as it were?  Or, is it designed to be an education that will enable that child to be self-sufficient as adult?  Different district and circuit courts used different formulas, and, as is often the case, where there's a split in the circuits, the Supreme Court is often willing to step in to resolve the matter.  They did, regarding FAPE, in the 1982 Board of Ed v. Rowley decision.

The Medical Malpractice Analogy, or, a Question of Trust

I recently heard a presentation about the importance of trust in the school district-parent relationship, especially when it involves a child receiving special education services.  Parents of kids with special needs are relying on the school to provide the services set forth in the child's IEP, and to provide their child with FAPE (a fair and appropriate public education).  If the system breaks down - the child isn't receiving the specified type, or amount, of services; the school isn't implementing the specified accommodations or behavior plan; the child is being "taught" by an unskilled aide in a trailer on the edge of campus (no really) - then that trust between the school and the parent is destroyed.  Even if the situation is resolved through an IEP meeting, or mediation or other dispute resolution process, how can the parents trust the school again?

The dynamic has permanently changed.  This particular parent, who may have been easygoing before, is going to be more demanding, more insistent on record keeping, and less trustful.  How can the school rebuild the trust?

Accessibility of Digital Educational Materials

So, in case you didn't know, the U.S. Department of Education has a Office for Civil Rights (OCR) that's responsible for, among other things, enforcing the ADA (as it applies to public schools) and the IDEA (the special education law).

Last week, the OCR issued some policy guidance on the matter of digital educational materials.  They first tackled this issue in June 2010, when the OCR issued what they call a "Dear Colleague Letter" (a "DCL", and no, I have no idea where they came up with that naming system) on the issue of postsecondary institutions using e-books.  Last week's DCL basically updated the June 2010 policy guidance and clarified that the same principles apply to elementary and secondary schools.

What's the concern?  Well, with the increase in use of e-books - and technology in the classroom more generally - the OCR is reminding schools at all levels that they "must ensure equal access to the educational benefits and opportunities afforded by the technology and equal treatment in the use of the technology for all students, including students with disabilities".  If teachers are using an online software program to track homework assignments, or assigning reading in e-books in lieu of paper textbooks, then these technologies need to accessible to all students, even those who may have learning disabilities, vision impairments, or anything else.  It really shouldn't be surprising - this is basic non-discrimination under the ADA, and isn't new law.