Alternative formats - your country needs you

The proportion of published material available as Accessible Format Materials (AFM) to those who can't read is still tiny

We are now used to being treated equally under the Disability Discrimination Acts.  We are used to seeing “This document is available in Braille or large print” on the back of leaflets from large organisations.  But if we have reading difficulties we are probably not actually used to getting and reading those documents in the format that we want.  They are still too difficult to get hold of.  At iansyst we print those words on documents but very much hope that nobody will take us up on them because it would be expensive to convert a document into Braille.  We do try to make the documents or similar information available on our web sites in an accessible form that people can read electronically with the same or more convenience.  The BDA is also trying to go down a similar route, but with more emphasis on audio files, thanks, largely, to the efforts of volunteer Jean Hutchins.

But the proportion of published material that is available to those who can’t read is tiny.

The law is mostly there.  The software is mostly there. The format standards are mostly there. The necessary hardware devices are mostly there. The systems to make alternative formats available are mostly there.

But what is missing is the knowledge, the demand, the expectation, the belief amongst reading-impaired people, their parents, their teachers, their supporters that, in this day and age, we have the right to have reading materials, as a matter of course, in the form that we can read them.

So the next step is up to you.  As dyslexic person, teacher, SENCo, parent, support worker you need to be asking, now, for any text to be in a readable form.  Only if there is a full demand will the systems be set up to provide alternative formats as a matter of course.  Many people should be involved in providing the various bits of the alternative format jigsaw. Only if there is full demand will these people themselves demand the tools and systems to do the job not just “mostly” but completely and easily.

In a magnificently thorough 220-page report “Books for All: accessible curriculum materials for pupils with additional support needs”, the Call Scotland have produced a comprehensive overview of the difficulties and inadequacies of our provision today of alternative formats for the whole range of people with reading difficulties.  The report is of course available electronically at www.books4all.org.uk and makes a lot of suggestions as to what needs to happen if children with reading difficulties are not to be further handicapped throughout their education.  It’s written for Scotland but the content is universal.  And the basic message is this:
A lot more needs to happen.

A lot more will happen if we know it is possible, if we expect it, if we demand it, if we accept nothing else.  And we means you!

Books for All calculates that 4-5% of school-age pupils may benefit from materials in alternative formats, either in addition to or instead of the standard text. I think that is a very conservative number. At the moment, practically all the transcription centres that are producing alternative format materials are doing so for visually impaired students - usually Braille or large print.  For every visually impaired student there are 14 with specific learning difficulties (including dyslexia) and another 14 with moderate general learning difficulties.  The little that is currently being provided is catering for a small minority of the need.

What we should be expecting:

It’s not just books that we should be expecting to be available in alternative formats: novels, textbooks, reference books, catalogues and guidebooks.  It’s notices, descriptions, assessment and exam papers, pamphlets, timetables, worksheets, reports and communications from school to home, and they need to be available at the right time, which is usually now not in two days’, or a week’s time after someone has had time to prepare them. Students need to have them at the same time as their peers who are working with them.

For dyslexic people the format is likely to be electronic text.  But it might be large print, or an audio recording of homework instructions or a report, or an e-mail of communications with home. In some circumstances it might even be a video recording.  For children with general learning difficulties it may be simplified text or text with symbols.  It’s not good enough to expect people to get by or to miss out on information because it is not in a format that they can readily digest.  Nor to think that providing Braille or large print is enough.

Mostly there:

I said above that the law, the software, the standards are mostly there.  They will only get fully there when enough people are involved in the process on a daily basis whether as readers, supporters, or alternative format providers – enough people that care to get the law, the software, the standards, the hardware, the systems perfected so that the process works simply, quickly, routinely. 

To be quick, simple and routine various things need to be improved.

Better software:

Tools for accessibility and creating alternative formats are a key area for software developers today.  Dolphin’s EasyConverter helps organisations convert from printed and electronic documents to Braille, large print, DAISY and audio.  (DAISY is the Digital Accessible Information SYstem, a form of digital talking book designed for people with visual impairment but also of potential interest to people with other reading difficulties.) Web information is often the best alternative format and readers such as BrowseAloud, ReadSpeaker and Textic Talklets make it easy for websites to make themselves accessible by being readable aloud.

But there is also a lot of room for improvement.  Most people use Microsoft Word to write text, but it is much too difficult to produce text that is “accessible”.  That means text that is properly structured and has descriptions of pictures so that people with visual impairments can find their way around the document easily.  It needs to be possible to set Word up in such a way that it always asks the right questions and discourages the wrong type of formatting, so that it provides Incidental Obligatory Accessibility – without trying and without needing to be skilful.  Text-to-speech engines need to improve their accuracy when they read numbers, abbreviations, and words like “lead” which can be pronounced in different ways. It can still be too difficult to understand what the computer is reading out to you from the screen.

Better hardware:

We still haven’t quite got the ideal machine for reading electronic text from; one that compares favourably with a book. Laptop computers are too big and heavy.  Electronic books are now arguably light enough, have a screen readable in sunlight, and enough battery life, but will still not read out loud as well as display text.  Mobile phones and PDAs are becoming much better as reading devices and have the advantage, despite their small screen size, of being in everybody’s pocket.

CapturaTalk is intelligent software that can be loaded onto a Windows mobile phone and reads out loud from a picture of text that its camera takes.  It shows the way that everyday small devices that anyone might buy can develop for people with reading impairments.  E-paper may be an answer.  Coming soon, at first in black and white only, you will be able to roll your display up so that it is about as light and readable as paper.

Better habits:

Authors will need to learn better habits to produce Incidental Obligatory Accessibility .They will need to learn to use Word’s more efficient Styles rather than using the typical hodgepodge of ad hoc formatting that many of us do.  And authors and print designers will need to spend a little bit of extra time when producing complex documents.

Better services:

Where someone has gone to the trouble of converting a work into an alternative format we need to be able to find it.  It is a waste of time if someone else has to duplicate the same work on the same document to produce the same result.  RevealWeb was a database of alternative format materials for visually impaired people.  However it will need to widen its remit to other disabilities and improve the quantity and quality of the information that it provides before it will be a really comprehensive and adequate service. RevealWeb has disappeared, partly into RNIB’s database, but some similiar service is still needed. The nearest thing is perhaps the www.bookshare.org service which is so far less devleoped for UK users.

Better laws or licences:

Since 2002 people have been able to convert materials for visually impaired people into alternative formats without getting permission from the publisher.  But people with other reading impairments are still supposed to get permission.  The law needs to be extended to cover all reading disabilities that are covered by the Disability Discrimination Acts.  Meanwhile, and more easily, most of the organisations who are converting to alternative formats are doing so under a licence from the Copyright Licensing Agency.  Starting with the Higher Education licence these licences are now being changed to cover all disabilities

Better publishers’ work flow:

In principle, practically all books now go to the printers as electronic text.  With small changes to processes and procedures this electronic text could be all that people with some reading impairments – such as dyslexia – need in order to be able to read it properly.  And then the electronic texts need to be made available through some central repository or via some database like RevealWeb so that individual reading-impaired people or other organisations acting on their behalf can download them easily.  And it may need some Digital Rights Management system to ensure that publishers do not lose income.

Conclusion:

The basics of the system are already there to provide you with the reading materials that you need in the format that you need them at the time you need them.  To get it to work properly needs a lot of developments and tweaks.  They will come about much quicker if we and you insist that the system start working now creaks and all.

This is an updated version of an article by Ian Litterick that first appeared in The Dyslexia Handbook 2008/09 (BDA).

Adapted: 30 October 2008