Special Needs and 508 compliance Guidelines for Web Sites

Find Special Needs Guidlines for Gifted, Deaf, Autisim, ADD, ADHD, LD, Dyslexia and 508 Compliance assitive Technology accommodations and modifications in testing situations.

508 CODE TOOLS TO TEST USABILITY AND COMPLIANCE

Accessibility really affects everyone. “Click here is postmodern. It's like a stop sign that says 'This is a Stop Sign.'” People already know how to use a hyperlink. A hyperlink has words underlined in blue.
Honestly, up to this point I never knew this. I don't see the web, I hear it with a screen reader. To me, a link just has the word “Link” or “Visited Link” prepended to the name. For example: I don't see the web, I hear it with a, link, screen reader. To me, click here makes no sense. Until recently a blind person could not click anything. Now someone can on an iPhone/iPad, or if using a magic trackpad on a Mac, but for the most part blind people do all their navigation using the keyboard. Thus it means nothing. ~ Links as Language

Special Education Links

SPECIAL NEEDS FOR THE GIFTED CHILDREN and the GIFTED STUDENT

SPECIAL NEEDS ASSISTIVE TECHNOLOGY
FOR STUDENTS WITH IEPs AND /OR 504 PLANS
are allowed to use their accommodations and modifications in testing situations. Deaf, Autisim, ADD, ADHD, LD, Dyslexia, learning different, learning disabled, special education Know Your Rights and Sue for Assistive Technology

Martin Bayne's Technology Blog - Assistive, Adaptive, Accessible Technolgy. The Ultimate Consumer Reference. You have a right to software you can use, regardless of your disability. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act of 2004. The Rehabilitation Amendments -- they are all there to be used.Trouble is they are not used often enough. Continue reading "Know Your Rights and Sue for Assistive Technology"

The National Center for Learning Disabilities IDEA Parent Guide 2005 online guide to the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), designed to explain the federal laws that underpin special education in every state. Although created primarily for parents, the guide is also a valuable source of information in accessible language for classroom teachers who may not have a background in special education. Teachers can use the guide as a referral for parents or use it themselves to better understand the rights and requirements of their students who have special needs. [and 2004 PDF]

SEGREGATING SPECIAL-NEEDS STUDENTS 2007
Rhode Island schools are keeping too many special-education students in separate classrooms, a practice that educators say prevents many of these students from receiving the same education as their peers in regular classrooms. About 8,900 of Rhode Islands 31,000 students in special education -- 29 percent -- spend the bulk of their class time in small, "self-contained" classrooms, even though research has shown that both students with -- and without -- learning disabilities benefit from learning side by side. In many cases, reports Jennifer D. Jordan in the Providence Journal, the practice violates federal laws. Rhode Island already claims the highest percentage of students in special education in the country -- 21 percent compared with the national average, 13.7 percent, a dilemma the state has been grappling with for several years. It costs far more to educate a special-education student in Rhode Island -- $22,893 a year, compared with $9,269 for a regular-education student. But officials say it is unclear whether integrating students would cost less than separate classrooms, as the special-education students would still need extra services. Most students in special education have mild to moderate learning disabilities, and state educators concede that most of them would benefit -- and perform better on state tests -- if they were placed in integrated classrooms with support from special-education teachers. (Just 1 percent has disabilities severe enough to be exempted from standardized state tests. These students take an alternate assessment.)

No Exit' Statistics by Linda Schrock Taylor
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig3/taylor4.html
Response to my article regarding the lack of educational policies and procedures for 'Remediation and Release' of special education students ([3] No Exit: The 'Black Hole' of Special Education) has been extensive. Letters from individuals interested and involved in the problem - parents, teachers, students, administrators, voters - have added yet more names and stories that tell of the depth and hopelessness of the current 'permanent placement/black hole' process that holds special needs children in a system which seldom offers a positive or acceptable exit.

Teachers Remember What Title IX Is About
Title IX, Education Amendments of 1972 (Title 20 U.S.C. Sections 1681-1688)

Assistive Media
New Media Helps Visually Impaired hear the stuff over the internet. David Erdody is using RealAudio technology on his AssistiveMedia Web site to make magazine articles available in audio form so that people with visual impairments can have access to a wider range of media.

DEAF ONLINE

DePaul Develops Sign Language Translator - DEMO
A team of faculty and students at DePaul University's School of Computer Science has created a computer-generated synthetic interpreter capable of translating spoken English into American Sign Language (ASL). The program, dubbed "Paula," uses speech recognition and sophisticated animation. Using the system, a hearing person speaks through a headset connected to the computer. The animated figure of Paula then translates into ASL through hand gestures and facial expressions on the computer screen. The project required four years and more than 25,000 hours worth of work by the project team. "Most people are not aware that ASL is not simply a signed form of English," said Rosalee Wolfe, professor of computer science at DePaul and one of the leaders of the research team. "It is a series of hand configurations, hand positions, body positions and movement and facial expressions that are used in certain specific combinations. Hence, creating an animated translator is a very intricate and detailed process."

Technical Assistance Project
The RESNA Technical Assistance Project provides technical assistance to the 56 state and territory assistive technology programs as authorized under the Assistive Technology Act of 1998 (P.L. 105-394).
Our technical assistance is designed to enhance the efforts of the State AT grantees and addresses issues raised by States and other entities through a variety of mechanisms.
The Technical Assistance Project is a sponsored project of RESNA, the Rehabilitation Engineering and Assistive Technology Society of North America.The RESNA Technical Assistance Project (Grant No. H224B990005) is one of four technical assistance grants funded by the National Institute On Disability and Rehabilitation Research (NIDRR) under the Assistive Technology Act of 1998.

The Internet Resources for Special Children (IRSC) web site is dedicated to communicating information relating to the needs of children with disABILITIES on a global basis in order to: Provide valuable information for parents, family members, caregivers, friends, educators, and medical professionals who interact with children who have disABILITIES. Improve the environment for children with disABILITIES. Create positive changes and enhance public awareness and knowledge of children with disABILITIES. Act as a central starting point for information and resources.

ADHD Special Needs Resources for Misunderstood Kids...Outside the Box!
http://adhd.kids.tripod.com

IDEA Practices
http://www.ideapractices.org/

Marc's Special Ed. Page:
http://www.halcyon.com/marcs/sped.html
It contains dozens of links to special Ed. sites, organizations and services for autism, blindness, epilepy, hearing impaired, gifted, speech-language, and many other exceptionalities.

LD OnLine: Learning Disabilities Resources
http://www.ldonline.org/

College and university placement assistance for students with learning disabilities."
http://www.ldcollegeplacement.com/

Special Needs

508 COMPLIANCE
THERE ARE GUIDELINES FOR GOVERNMENT WEBSITES THAT MUST BE FOLLOWED

508 Compliance - See this first
http://www.w3.org/TR/WAI-WEBCONTENT/
http://www.cast.org/bobby/
http://www.usableweb.com/


Follow ALL Priority 1 recommendations of the WAI
http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990324/full-checklist.html

Guidelines include:
- avoid image maps, especially server side
- don't mess with default colors
- use meaningful alt tags
-- no necessary info should be delivered with rollovers
- text for audio content
- caption video content
- use accessible java applets if java is used at all
- have table data read across rows rather than down columns

Still other resources are:
http://www.access-board.gov/
(committee or task group charged with writing the accessibility guidelines)

Html writers guild http://aware.hwg.org/

We Media Web site specifically designed for the disabled and for use by the blind.

AUTISTIC AUTHOR TO LECTURE ON HER PERSPECTIVE OF CONSCIOUSNESS AT UNE'S NEW ENGLAND INSTITUTE 8/26/02

PORTLAND-"I think in pictures," says Temple Grandin, an autistic person who has not only overcome the oftentimes debilitating challenges of her condition but has used her picture-making mind to great advantage, becoming one of the world's top livestock handling facility designers.
Grandin is the author of two autobiographical books, Emergence and Thinking in Pictures, as well as 300 articles in scientific journals and livestock trade publications. She is an assistant professor of animal science at Colorado State University and consults with the livestock industry on facility design, livestock handling and animal welfare. She has designed livestock handling facilities in the U.S., Canada, Europe, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand and other countries. In North America, almost half of the cattle are handled in a center track restrainer system that she designed. "When I design a piece of equipment, I can test run it in my head like a video," Grandin explains. "If there is no picture in my imagination, I have no understanding."