With additional contributions by
Jagdish Chander, Eugene Marcus, Michael Schwartz,
Valerie Smith, Cheryl Spear, and Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri
Also, this information package includes reprints that we are unable to produce here on our web site. We have indicated contact information for each resource, or you can obtain a complete copy of this information package by contacting the Center on Human Policy via email at thechp@syr.edu , by phone at 315-443-3851 or 1-800-894-0826 (both voice), or by writing to the address listed above.
With contributions by Valerie Smith, Steve Taylor, Pam Walker, Julia White, and Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri
With contributions by Pam Walker, Julia White, and Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri
Jagdish Chander is a third year doctoral student in Cultural Foundations of Education with a concentration in Disability Studies at Syracuse University.
Rebecca Cory is a third year doctoral student in Cultural Foundations
of Education with concentrations in Disability Studies and Higher Education
at Syracuse University.
Eugene Marcus is an Associate at the Facilitated Communication
Institute at Syracuse University and a person with autism.
Michael Schwartz is a third year doctoral student in Cultural
Foundations of Education with a concentration in Disability Studies at Syracuse
University.
Valerie Smith, Ph.D. is an assistant professor of Education at
Hobart William Smith Colleges in Geneva, NY. Valerie holds her Doctorate
in Special Education with a concentration in Disability Studies from Syracuse
University.
Cheryl Spear is a fifth year doctoral student in Cultural Foundations
of Education with a concentration in Disability Studies at Syracuse University.
Steven J. Taylor, Ph.D. is Professor of Cultural Foundations
of Education, Director of the Center on Human Policy, and Coordinator of
Disability Studies at Syracuse University.
Julia White is a third year doctoral student in Special Education
with a concentration in Disability Studies at Syracuse University.
Pamela Walker, Ph.D. is Research Associate at the Center on Human
Policy.
Rachael Zubal-Ruggieri is Information Coordinator at the Center
on Human Policy.
We would also like to acknowledge the contributions of Stephanie Lewis
and Donna Martinez.
How should universities, community colleges, and other educational institutions
respond to students with disabilities? Should decisions regarding disabled
students be delegated to the Section 504 and Americans with Disabilities
Act (ADA) compliance officer? As important as Section 504 and the ADA have
been-and as important as it is for people with disabilities to have access
legal remedies to overcome discrimination, compliance with the law is not
enough. It is merely the starting point. As the title of this information
package suggests, universities and postsecondary institutions must move "beyond
compliance" and adopt new philosophies and approaches regarding students
with disabilities.
Why should postsecondary institutions change? One reason is that disabled
students will no long accept being viewed and treated as burdens on the campus
treasury, accommodated merely to avoid troubles with the law. The disability
rights movement, which has been so influential in expanding transportation,
housing, and employment options, has spread to campus. Disability "culture,"
as reflected in videos, newsletters and magazines, and the arts, has forever
changed how people with disabilities view themselves. For younger people
especially, disability is no longer a source of shame and stigma; it is a
source of pride and solidarity. Disability Studies provides an intellectual
foundation for scholarly inquiries on disability as a social and cultural
phenomenon and encourages disabled students and faculty to view their "personal"
situations as "political" issues.
Yet, the most important reason why universities and postsecondary institutions
should change is because the presence and participation of students, faculty,
and staff with disabilities on campus enrich the experiences of all members
of the campus community. Disability is part of the human experience. Sooner
or later, practically all people will be touched by disability directly or
indirectly. Especially in a diverse, democratic society, all members on campus
benefit from knowing and learning from people who are different than themselves.
Through personal experience and direct exposure to disabled persons, students,
faculty, and staff learn to question and reject traditional images of pity,
burden, and shame widely found in popular culture.
The presence of people with disabilities on campus also leads to the integration
of disability into teaching and research in the social sciences, humanities,
arts, public communications, and other fields. Disability represents a unique
lens through which to study everything ranging from societal stereotyping
to cultural representation to social movements to government-community-individual
responsibility. Those in the clinical and helping professions can and should
learn that disability is not always something that should be cured, corrected,
and prevented and that disabled people are more than clients.
This information package contains essays, reprints, and resources designed
to assist postsecondary institutions to move beyond compliance and to include
disabled persons in all aspects of campus life. It is not intended to provide
step-by-step guidelines or to serve as a comprehensive manual on all aspects
of inclusion and accommodations. Rather, it is designed to offer some perspectives,
strategies, and resources that individuals can use to advocate for the inclusion
of people with disabilities at universities and postsecondary institutions.
This package uses Section 504 and the ADA as a starting point-not the end
point-for discussions of the inclusion of persons with disabilities. The
next set of selections addresses various ways postsecondary institutions,
faculty, and students can move beyond compliance. The following section describe
specific accommodations for disabled people, including a program that involves
young adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities in campus life.
The next section contains reprints of published articles that address different
ways in which the visibility of disability on campus can be raised. The final
two sections contain brief annotations of published sources and additional
resources.
We hope that this information package will encourage and assist others
to move beyond compliance at their universities and postsecondary educational
institutions.
For students with disabilities to be fully included at postsecondary institutions
and for postsecondary institutions to benefit fully from the presence of
students with disabilities, campus culture must change.
Employment (Title I): Employers with 15 or more employees must provide reasonable accommodations to protect the rights of qualified individuals with disabilities in all aspects of employment. These accommodations include providing interpreters and readers, restructuring jobs, altering the layout of workstations, or modifying equipment. Title I applies to the entire gamut of employment practices, including the application process, hiring, wages, benefits, terms and conditions and all other aspects of employment. Medical examinations are highly regulated and cannot be used to screen people with disabilities out. If the person with a disability is qualified for employment, the accommodation does not impose a financial hardship on the business, and the worker's disability poses no threat to the health and safety of others (or herself), the business must accommodate the worker.The ADA's protection applies primarily, but not exclusively to "disabled" individuals. An individual is "disabled" if he or she meets at least any one of the following tests:
Public Services (Title II): Public services, which include state and local government instrumentalities, the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, and other commuter authorities, cannot deny services to people with disabilities and must include them in programs or activities which are available to people without disabilities. In addition, public transportation systems, such as public transit buses, must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. Courts, libraries, public schools and other public entities must ensure that their facilities and programs are accessible to people with disabilities.
Public Accommodations (Title III): All privately owned, privately operated businesses or companies that transact business with the general public must be accessible to people with disabilities. Twelve categories of public accommodations are listed, which include facilities such as restaurants, hotels, museums, zoos, banks, professional offices of doctors and lawyers, grocery stores, retail stores, etc., as well as privately owned transportation systems, all of which must remove architectural barriers and provide reasonable accommodations so that people with disabilities may access their services, programs and facilities as long as the accommodation does not work a undue burden or a fundamental alteration to the program or service. All new construction and modifications must be accessible to individuals with disabilities. For existing facilities, barriers to services must be removed if readily achievable.
Telecommunications (Title IV): Telecommunication companies offering telephone service to the general public must provide telephone relay service to individuals who use telecommunication devices for the deaf (TDDs) or similar devices.
Miscellaneous (Title V): This title includes a provision prohibiting either (a) coercing or threatening or (b) retaliating against the disabled or those attempting to aid people with disabilities in asserting their rights under the ADA. It also provides for attorney's fees for plaintiffs who prevail under the statute.
While the employment provisions of the ADA apply to employers of fifteen
employees or more, its public accommodations provisions apply to all sizes
of business, regardless of number of employees. State and local governments
are covered regardless of size.
Section 504: Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, 29 U. S.
C. § 794, was signed into law in 1973, but its enforcing regulations
did not come into force until 1977. Section 504 is a one-sentence law that
states,
No otherwise qualified individual with a disability in the United States, as defined in Sec. 705(20) of this title, shall, solely by reason of her or his disability, be excluded from the participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination under any program or activity receiving Federal financial assistance or under any program or activity conducted by any Executive agency or by the United States Postal Service.Any program or activity receiving federal funding must, under Section 504, make itself accessible to people with disabilities, and that includes providing reasonable accommodations to ensure access.
This juncture represents an opportunity, in the view of the students
of the Beyond Compliance Coordinating Committee at Syracuse University, to
argue for "going beyond compliance" with the law. In our view, it is simply
not enough to be "in compliance." These two laws provide plaintiffs with
disabilities the tools by which to chip away at the doors of discrimination
that keep them out of the mainstream of American economic, social and political
life. However, the statistics since 1992, the year the ADA became operative,
have not been encouraging. For instance, a study by the American Bar Association
of all Title I employment litigation in the federal courts discloses that
employers are winning 92% of the time. A recent study shows that the unemployment
rate of people with disabilities remains at between 66% and 70%, the same
rate at the time the ADA was signed into law. While the ADA represents a
major step forward in removing de jure segregation (legal barriers), there
is much work to be done to remove de facto segregation (attitudes and biases
that work to block people with disabilities from gaining access). The sad
truth is that many administrators and employers who see a person in a wheelchair
or a deaf person immediately see a financial burden. Instead of seeing a
person to welcome into the community of students or workers, they foresee
a demand for spending money. Their impulse is to "hold down" the costs,
to spend only as much as is needed to bring themselves into minimum (often
minimal) compliance with federal law. All they want to do is to be in compliance
and nothing more.
These laws represent a beginning point, a starting point for those
who are responsible for ensuring access to people with disabilities. Providing
an interpreter for a deaf student, a reader for a blind worker or a ramp
for a wheelchair user is the first step toward making a place accessible
and welcoming for disabled people. It is the minimum required simply to
get the disabled person past the gate; what is needed once inside the house
are more adjustments to make the house a welcoming and comfortable place.
Decades, even centuries, of discrimination, barriers and prejudice
have created a society of exclusion that led Congress to note that historically,
society has tended to isolate and segregate some 43 million Americans with
disabilities, and, despite some improvements, such forms of discrimination
against individuals with disabilities continue to be a serious and pervasive
social problem, which is growing as the population ages. Further, as Congress
noted, discrimination against individuals with disabilities persists in such
critical areas as employment, housing, public accommodations, education,
transportation, communication, recreation, institutionalization, health services,
voting, and access to public services. Congress also noted that individuals
with disabilities continually encounter various forms of discrimination,
including outright intentional exclusion; the discriminatory effects of architectural,
transportation, and communication barriers; overprotective rules and policies;
failure to make modifications to existing facilities and practices; exclusionary
qualification standards and criteria; segregation; and relegation to lesser
services, programs, activities, benefits, jobs, or other opportunities.
Indeed, census data, national polls, and other studies have documented
that people with disabilities, as a group, occupy an inferior status in our
society, and are severely disadvantaged socially, vocationally, economically,
and educationally. As Congress found, "individuals with disabilities are
a discrete and insular minority who have been faced with restrictions and
limitations, subjected to a history of purposeful unequal treatment, and
relegated to a position of political powerlessness in our society, based
on characteristics that are beyond the control of such individuals and resulting
from stereotypic assumptions not truly indicative of the individual ability
of such individuals to participate in, and contribute to, society." To combat
this legacy of discrimination, Congress announced that America's goal with
respect to people with disabilities is to "assure equality of opportunity,
full participation, independent living, and economic self- sufficiency for
such individuals." The costs of not doing so are too great: "The continuing
existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people
with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue
those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous, and
costs the United States billions of dollars in unnecessary expenses resulting
from dependency and non-productivity.
Full inclusion and equality of opportunity carry social benefits,
too. By providing more accommodations and greater equality of opportunity,
society enables more disabled people to become employable, and the more disabled
people there are in our communities, the more we all become used to the idea
of disability. This dovetails nicely with a statistical fact: the graying
of America will see an upturn in the numbers of disabled people. As more
of us become disabled due to age, we need more than ever the lessons people
with disabilities can help us learn. Greater inclusion of people with disabilities
in a student body or workforce leads to greater diversity, an important and
worthy goal, one endorsed by a majority of the Supreme Court and a number
of universities, including the University of Michigan, in matters having
to do with race. Why should it be any different for disability?
Finally, law seeks to express social values, and the ADA is an attempt
to redress years of exclusion. Nowhere are the institutions of society barred
from going beyond the ADA. Simply because the law requires certain steps
to remove architectural and communication barriers does not place a restriction
on a school or business in working to create greater diversity in its student
body or workforce.
THE CASE FOR MOVING BEYOND COMPLIANCE
Disability is more than just a physical or mental impairment. Accessibility is more than just compliance with federal and state laws. Disability is about the human condition, and the Syracuse University community would be enhanced by a broader conceptualization of disability that calls for inclusion, integration, and equality. Thus, compliance with the law is the starting point, not the bottom line, for the university community, and disability should be included, along with race and gender, in what is defined as a "minority" on campus.
Disabled Student Services (DSS) is an office designated to serve the needs of students with disabilities through a student driven and student centered model that promotes self-advocacy and self-efficacy.
The student is the expert on her experience, the DSS staff member
is the expert on the specific campus environment. Together, these two experts
pair to facilitate the student's success. Access to the academic curriculum
is the first priority. DSS staff work to facilitate accommodations that serve
the student equitably. They know that one accommodation does not fit all
students, or even one student in all classes. They treat students as individuals
and make decisions based on the individual circumstances in each class. They
work as a team with the student, faculty, and appropriate department chairs
or support staff to facilitate student learning in each class. DSS staff
know that success in a course is not always a passing grade. Sometimes a
successful situation is one in which the student learns about his strengths
and weaknesses and how to better compensate for them in the future. To this
end, the DSS staff member does not do for a student what he can, or could
do for himself.
Access to campus life goes beyond the classroom, to the residence
hall or off campus apartment, student activities, campus religious and cultural
functions, and other extra curricular or co-curricular events. Many ways
that DSS staff assist students are low or no cost, and can make the difference
between attending classes and having a college experience.
The DSS on campus may be one of the first and most intense contacts
a student with a disability has with the university. DSS should represent
the philosophy and mission of the university in the best light. There is
no expectation that the DSS alone should break down all the access barriers
on campus. It should, however, serve as a resource for referral and support
for students as they break down the barriers themselves.
There is a fine line between encouraging someone to be independent,
and leaving them to sink or swim on their own. Supporting students in self-efficacy
involves assisting them in self-reflection that clarifies their needs and
improves their ability to articulate those needs. It involves knowing resources
on campus for allies and assisting students in seeking out those allies to
get their needs met. Promoting self-advocacy involves providing a student
with the tools he or she needs to be an advocate, through knowledge of resources,
and personal support.
Many departments at a university are already in place that model
students centered support. For example, the Office of International Students
may assist students with finding housing, choosing classes, understanding
the registration process, or finding venues for social interaction. These
offices respond to students' requests with a "can do" attitude, and if they
are unable to meet the request, they provide the students with resources
necessary to meet the request. The staff in these offices know they are not
expected to find the housing or career for the student, but rather to facilitate
contact with the appropriate campus resource and provide support to other
campus staff members on the intricacies of working with their specific population.
They also know how students in similar situations have or have not been successful
in the past, and can advise students on the appropriateness of their decisions.
A DSS staff member should be knowledgeable about campus resources and known
as a campus resource.
An effective DSS office is the facilitator of success for a student
with a disability and therefore success of the college and a whole. When
the DSS staff understand the importance of each decision to the student who
is making it, they can advise and support in the best way possible.
There are three major benefits to student accommodations. The primary
benefit, obviously, is for the student with the disability, that he or she
receives equal access to course content and is able to be evaluated reasonably
and fairly. There are secondary benefits that follow the principle of universal
design in architecture: the idea being that not just people in wheelchairs
benefit from universal architecture, but all kinds of people benefit and
the environment becomes more useful and inviting for everyone. I advise
a doctoral student who is deaf. He took a very intense course in which he
found that sign language interpreters were not an appropriate accommodation.
He received and I evaluated the use of CART (Communication Access Real-Time
Transcription), a communication system that requires "the use of machine
steno shorthand skills to produce real-time text on a computer." The primary
benefit was that the student was able to read the lecture and participate
in the class discussions. He also had a transcript of the class that was
available immediately. The secondary benefit was to the other class members
and the professor. The other students had a transcript against which they
checked their notes in order to have a more thorough understanding of the
course materials. The professor was able to evaluate his teaching strategies
through transcript review and use the transcript to aid in his writing. This
particular student does not request CART in all of his courses, only the
most intense ones, but in all of his courses, he requires breaks at regular
intervals (approximately one per hour), as it aids his cognitive processing
when working with interpreters. This primary benefit to the student with
the disability benefits the other students in the class as well, as regularly
scheduled breaks allow more concentration or focus on the part of all students.
The major benefit, though, is that accommodations create an accepting, positive
learning and social environment on campus.
Traditionally, the responsibility for accommodations is relegated
to offices of disability services (ODS), but this mindset must be changed
so that it is everyone's responsibility to create a positive classroom culture.
The following faculty responsibilities for accommodating their students with
disabilities, while perhaps not required by the ADA, lend themselves to creating
a caring, positive learning environment where people feel they can ask for
help whether or not it relates to disability. These examples also provide
primary and secondary benefits, which combine to create a positive learning
environment on campus.
Faculty members see themselves as advisors, and I have known advisors
to bend over backwards to help students, but when I have personally tried
to involve them in advocacy work for a student with a disability, they refused.
They see the problem and they sympathize with the student, but they don't
want to take a stand. Faculty should be allies and advocates willing to advocate
personally in meetings, to sign letters, or support their classes to act
as advocates.
If I can be a more effective professor for a student, I will accommodate
my students. I don't care if it is a disability issue or not. The bottom
line is that a person becomes a professor to help students learn and sometimes
that means that the in order to help a student learn, compliance with the
law is not enough. Sometimes the bottom line is beyond compliance.
Having peers who have disabilities adds to the depth of our education
in ways that no instructor, gifted as she or he is, can do in the classroom.
Most students in the classes I take have a particular interest in disability
issues. I believe, however, that the value of knowing peers with disabilities
is not limited to students in disability-related programs. Students in every
program gain valuable insight by studying and sharing everyday lives alongside
peers whose experiences might seem different from their own, whether that
peer comes from another culture, or country, or has a disability. As our
society grows in diversity, so should our campuses, and so should our understanding
of the value of diversity. Although we live, work, and study in the same
environments as my peers, my peers' experiences in these environments are
often different from my own, and I learn a lot about society through their
eyes. For example, my friend Bill uses a wheelchair and an electronic communication
device that others notice when we're out in public. Physical accessibility,
attitudes of others (we often find ourselves the center of unwanted attention
from others), and graceful but effective ways of making sure one's rights
are being respected (Bill is a master at gently re-directing a person's attention
to him, despite that person's preference for talking to him through me) take
on new dimensions when Bill and I go out.
Our peers bring accommodations to our everyday environments that
enrich all our experiences. For example, I cannot follow a discussion in
class if class members are interrupting and speaking over each other. One
of my colleagues uses a sign language interpreter, which requires that we
take turns speaking in class. This provides us all with the opportunity to
fully hear each other's ideas, to slow our own voices down (and hopefully
to think before speaking) and to respect each other's ideas. Others may require
auditory narration of videos, graphic representations of lecture topics,
or class notes from the instructor, and all of us in the class benefit from
these adaptations. Our peers add value to our classes in ways unrelated to
their disability status; for example, my Deaf colleague is also a lawyer,
activist, and expert on Marxism. Finally, our peers with disabilities provide
much-need role models for students, faculty, and employees of our institution.
They demonstrate that, given equal opportunity and respect, people with disabilities
contribute to society in important and, often, in unique ways.
As a consumer of the resources available at this student-centered
university, I want to be clear about my own position on the concepts of "fair
share" and "value." First, I don't believe that my education, or my potential
to contribute to the post-university world, is more valuable than that of
my colleagues who have disabilities. In fact, as members of an under-represented
and long-oppressed group, they have insights to contribute that I cannot.
Not only do I want their input in my own education (their value to me as
a university consumer), I want their input in my world (their value to society
in general). Second, as to the "extra" time and expense of their accommodations,
I again maintain that we all gain from having these in our classes. They
are not just accommodations for our colleagues; they are our accommodations
for all of us. Instructors are called upon to teach in ways that reach all
learners, not just those whose best learning comes from listening to three
hours of nonstop lecture. This helps instructors use, and model, better teaching
pedagogy. This also makes their courses more rich, accommodating, and interesting
to all students. Finally, it gives us access to the ideas that our colleagues
contribute to the class. I believe the "cost" of these elements cannot be
calculated in monetary terms, or, at least, not assigned solely to my colleagues
for whom those accommodations are developed. All of us share the cost because
all of us share the benefits. In the end, I believe that the "share" my colleagues
contribute is at least as valuable as the share they require.
To me, being an ally means asking my friend how I can best support
her or him. It might mean that we brainstorm together about how to address
particular issues. It might mean that I support them as they protest the
unequal treatment they receive. Sometimes I do the busy work that allows
them to more fully participate. Lately, it has meant that I join with a larger
group of colleagues with disabilities and allies to address "bigger picture"
issues on our campus. It often means that I, through my own words and actions,
show others why I want and need my friend to be in the same classroom or
community setting as me. Always, it means that I respect their right to speak
and act on their own behalf.
Peers are people who are in the same boat as we are, and who are
our equals. That means people who must follow the same foul rules that we
do, and who have ways of coping that we need to know about. Role models
are expected to be perfect, but peers can fumble and make mistakes just like
we do. Peers are fully human, and that welcomes us to be our fully human
selves. Do not think you confuse us by telling us about your mistakes and
failures. Those things are what makes us feel close to you. Never fear making
us less than perfect. We have already mastered that before you came along.
And don't worry about being a bad influence. We all watch TV and have enough
bad influences already.
All we need from you are three things: time, respect, and information.
Time is obvious, and the more the better. We mostly have way too much free
time. Respect is not so observable as time, but is more important and not
easy to establish if it is not there to begin with. My definition of respect
is when one person assumes there is just as much chance that I am right as
that he is. Good peer support is always from people who are eager to learn
and that means people who don't mind being wrong a lot of the time. My sense
of humor is always tickled by watching people who think they are perfect
not succeed and then still think they've got to keep being perfect anyway.
Respect means not getting stuck in that silly dangerous place.
The third thing our supporters provide us with is information.
Most typical people have information I would give anything for, but that
is not what they want to share with us "monsters." I use that word because
I think of Frankenstein and his monster. He is a good example of what happens
when you try to control how another person grows and learns. Really, monsters
are made with the good intentions of wise doctor Frankenstein to make a perfect
man. Because each person needs a different set of facts to base his or her
decisions on, each person also makes work for the support people to find
out what pieces are missing. Not everyone needs to know what time it is,
but some people base their whole lives on that fact. Not everyone needs to
know how to ask politely for a bathroom, but some people have used gestures
that got them in big trouble. And not everyone cares about football, but
some people have opened doors to friendship with Super Bowl comments. So
what information do you peer supporters have that we need? My guess is that
if you want to find out, we can tell you if you ask us. If that doesn't work,
give us some choices. Real support will include lots of stories about you
and your friends and your loves and your parents. And real support will
help us in ways that will amaze you both.
Jags: Cheryl, you have just written a paper talking about
issues concerning blind and visually impaired students at the higher education
level--wow, we need to take care of some of the very subtle things, which
we experience with the accommodation processes.
Cheryl: Yes, those descriptions I e-mailed to you were some
of my initial thoughts regarding the needs of students at the postsecondary
level, who live with sight impairments. In any case, I believe our conversation
today will take up some of those thoughts, Jagdish, What are your initial
thoughts on the topic?
Jags: Well, we all need accommodations in some way or other.
Yet, due to some sort of visible or invisible disability, some accommodations
are considered "special."
Cheryl: True to the nature of their specialness, those accommodations
and the folks who use them, have as a result of this need the experience
of living with unforgivable labels. Just because a person wishes to understand
the characters on a page which they experience as untranslatable, or to hear
what is being spoken, or see that which is being written, or write down what
is on their minds, the accommodations that would certainly satisfy any of
these need are called "special" and thus may be denied her or him because
these persons are given the label slow and retarded.
Still, every person living needs to be considered as having both
similar and particular needs in order to interact with their different environments.
Think for a moment. When people ask that the quality of CDs be improved
for a more crystallized sound, they are asking for a technological accommodation.
As well, when someone asks that a lecturer make use of the microphone or
sharpen the viewer on the overhead projector, they are asking for a series
of accommodations and adaptations due to an inability to hear or see. Or,
when people ask for a glossary at the end of a text that has different language
or symbols or rely on spell check, they too are being accommodated. Clearly,
neither of these person's request deserves the label "special," nor do they
need or want the stereotypes that define them. What may be understood here
is that individual needs do vary across a wide continuum and so do accommodations
requested and received in order to satisfy such diverse needs.
Jags: The problem of accommodations for a particular group
of students, the blind or visually impaired, is a relatively complex one.
Cheryl: The range of seeing is great.
Jags: Yes, of course. For instance, there are various categories
of blind students namely: blind, visually impaired, legally blind, low vision
and so forth. Within these categories are still other differences. Two students
with a similar loss of vision might have different ways of seeing and thus
different daily needs for accommodations; for example, a totally blind student
who acquires blindness during her or his adulthood in most cases does not
find her or himself very comfortable in reading a great volume of literature
in Braille. By contrast, someone who has been reading Braille since childhood
would find large volumes of text welcoming. Therefore, it is erroneous to
prescribe singularily one particular form of accommodation for students with
visual loss.
Cheryl: I came into the conversation about appropriate accommodations
for the visually impaired when, what was then called Adaptive Technology
(AT) was beginning to be explored as a viable resource for our population's
academic needs. As a result of coming to the technology late in my academic
career, I have now entered my fifth year of doctoral studies heavily relying
on the skills of Readers/Research Aids. This is not to say that I did not
have some remedial skills to use AT, or, the skills to use audio recorded
text, or, the skills to read Braille. What having this many skills meant
was that I had to do so much memory work. So much so, that these skills collided
with the memory work I had to do in order to perform well within and outside
the classroom. Besides, as I recall Braille became cumbersome even though
I was proficient in Grade Two Braille that is its contracted form.
Jags: Yes, Cheryl. Louis Braille invented Braille in the
first half of the nineteenth century, and Braille remained the primary source
of having access to information for hundreds of years. The invention of tape-recorders
enabled blind people to have speedy access to information and it speeded
up the process of storage of information through recorded texts. Thus, Braille
was supplemented with the recorded texts on tapes. Then, the invention of
computers and the development of access technology (which was earlier described
as "assistive technology" or "adaptive technology") revolutionized the process
of storage and access to information.
For those who are proficient in the latest technology, availability
of the text in the e-format (electronic text) is definitely most preferred,
but, it does not eliminate the importance of Braille or the recorded text
on tape. In other words, one form of accommodation may be preferred in a
particular situation, but, that does not make the other forms of accommodation
redundant and so nothing should be taken for granted as "the only form of
accommodation." The form of accommodation should depend upon the requirements
of the student, depending upon her or his skills of using Braille or audio
books or books in e-format among many other possibilities for accessing printed
and electronic text.
Cheryl: Proficiency in the earlier as well as the latest
technologies is an important consideration in creating accommodations that
will actually support students with disabilities in their academic studies.
But, I know there are additional academic concerns to be considered alongside
that of proficiency.
For example, the work of being a student requires multiple tasks
besides that of reading and writing. At our level of academic achievement,
we must begin to enter the spaces where we can engage with the scholarship
that has already begun and is ongoing; that is, gain access to the scholarship
within our particular fields of study. To do this, we must go into the corridors
of libraries, resource centers, lecture halls, science laboratories, and
so forth. As you well know, to physically enter spaces where knowledge is
available is but one accomplishment. Another accomplishment would be to enter
such spaces and have this available information be made accessible to us.
Let me give you two instances of what I am talking about.
In the library when I am conducting "first level" research and
I want just to browse in order to assess and access what has already been
written I get into big trouble. Once I move past the basement of the Bird
Library, and approach the first, second, or third floors, the knowledge within
those corridors there becomes prohibitive. On what shelves can I find my
books? What are the possible range of topics may I explore? How will I
retrieve the books from the shelves? How will I know if the table of contents
or the Introduction of a selected text covers my broad area of interests?
In another instance, at the Society for Disability Studies conference
we attended in June 2002, I received a Braille copy of the conference schedule
and program. But I found I could not read the Braille lettering. Now, I must
admit I had the Braille program turned upside down the whole time. Yet, the
point I wish to make is that the Braille print was so bad that I could not
discern upside down or top side up, its characters. In either situation,
entering the library corridors and the conference hall, I gained access to
printed text only because a human person, in the form of a Reader/Research
Aide was there to provide visual supports.
Jags: Yeah, I mean, dependence on other people can be minimized
with the maximization of the use of the assistive technology and with the
ability of creating material in accessible format. To some extent, the role
readers or role of human help is always needed and needed not only for students
with disabilities, its needed for everyone in some form or other actually.
So that would remain to some extent. But then the point is, to what extent
can that be minimized to make it, to make a student with disabilities as
much independent, as much as possible?
Cheryl: I wonder, to consider the question of independence
versus that of dependence is a topic for which we would need another conversation.
Here, in the North American social and political contexts, one form of behavior
is clearly privileged over the other depending on a host of conditions. For
instance, dependence becomes gendered and disability scripted when the persons
described in this way is either female or requires human services to accomplish
daily activities or perhaps both.
So as not to entirely close this conversation about utilizing readers
as a viable accommodation, I'd like to add another comment. In general, making
use of support persons, which includes readers, requires a lot of independent
negotiating and strategizing on the part of the student. But these skills
typically are not acknowledged or valued by service providers, counselors
and professors, those persons concerned with our academic output. Therefore,
the connections that readers/support persons and students make must be so
concise. It must be the case that the work that gets accomplished comply
with the academic standards set by the university. Sometimes, just knowing
how to make appropriate decisions and communicate with those who support
us becomes a move towards greater "interdependency."
For example, I worked with someone today and she said, "You know
sometimes I don't know which direction to go when I'm doing library research
for you." I responded in a light manner, "Yeah, it's all a guess. You can't
read what's in my head." And, if we had more to go on, like we had telepathy
or something that would be great, but we don't. And she said, "Well you
know, all we have between us is good communication yeah and all we have is
the faith in each other that we'll hear each other's requests and concerns."
And I thought that was real important because that's what we have. And that's
the only way we are going to get the work done.
Jags: Accommodations must be tailored to meet both general
and specific needs of the student. Apart from the efficiency and skill of
a student to use a particular form of accommodation, the form of accommodation
should also depend upon the context. For example, a student might prefer
to get his or her books in e-format when it comes to the voluminous books.
But if he or she is attending a conference, it might be preferable to have
the program in Braille rather than getting it in e-format. Similarly, in
case of the readings for the class, the texts, which need to be read, in
advance it might be preferable to have them available on tapes or e-format
(depending upon the preference of the concerned student). However, if there
is a handout, which needs to be read along with other students in the class,
it might be preferable to have it in Braille so that one can read it at the
same time with the other classmates.
Hence, there cannot be a clear, black and white picture of accommodations
for the blind and the visually impaired students. It will be not proper to
say that this is what is needed and this is what is not needed actually.
It has to be taken into account depending upon the skills of the students
whose going to be using these accommodations. What he or she is more equipped
to deal with. At the same time, it would also depend upon the contexts in
which these accommodations are being used.
Cheryl: Without consideration of the context in which an
accommodation will be used, the possession of that accommodation can become
virtually meaningless. Jagdish, you continue to assert that, "the skill of
the student when using an accommodation must also be taken seriously." Yes,
you and I agree about the necessity for students to have an adequate amount
of training with access technology in particular before we began to assimilate
it into our academic work. I know this competency we are describing has been
called "Readiness."
You know I see problems in accessing technology for students with
disabilities. One of the major problems is that the technology changes so
quickly. We are easily behind our colleagues, a good six months or more.
Mainstream and adaptive technologies are in a battle to achieve compatibility
with each other. And we remain in the middle of that confusion. I mean it's
six months by default. Not to mention that even with the compatibility issue
being addressed, Colleges' and Universities inability to become informed
about the new technologies in order to bring them forward does not set well
with the work that must get done by us. Such consistent delays result in
an unfortunate lag for students with disabilities.
But then another issue that must get attention is learning. Jagdish,
I know you taught me something about becoming immersed in the operation of
the technology and being with it alone. That is, not necessarily working
with the technology in context with academic work, although the contextualization
helps to reinforce the learning of the technology. I've been listening to
the tutorial tapes and it's a lot of memory work. There's no doubt in my
mind that if one already has a lot of coursework to do in addition to learning
the keyboard commands that literally drive our access to the multiple screens
within, no less, a Windows/viewing environment, is nearly impossible. It
becomes complicated and it slows down all learning processes. Either the
learning, the contextual learning gets slowed down or the academic work gets
slowed down.
Jags: Yeah that lags behind.
Cheryl: Yeah that lags behind so we have a problem here.
One of my colleagues, who's a damn good technology specialist and he's totally
blind, said, "Cheryl, one of the things I'd like to see you do is look at
the issue of `readiness' for students who come into the academy in terms
of their ability to effectively use the technology." He said, "We try to
train them but we only give four to eight, weeks of training at the most."
And we know that when the folks with sight impairments leave the technology
centers, they are not prepared to use the technology at their colleges or
universities. But it's what the state allows. And so we need to find another
way to make sure that students are more technologically literate and ready
when they leave our centers. But will they get into the academy somewhere
in-between? Ready but not really ready? Because once you get into the academy
there's no space to learn.
Jags: I agree. I somehow find myself slightly fortunate that
I first tried to make myself comfortable with technology and then came to
this school. Otherwise I don't think I would be able to keep up. It took
me an entire three months altogether, full-time, day to night, to be fully
computer trained, in terms of computers in general--learning the basics of
computers and then the use of assistive technology.
So, if I had to spare these three months now, I would never be
able to do it in the next five years during my Ph.D. I can never take all
those months off now. And, well that's about the basics, that even now actually
if I could keep up I would be very happy to take a month off and really concentrate
on making myself updated on technology. Though my knowledge, when I came
I had the upgraded knowledge of technology a year ago actually. But this
one year has again made so much more difference and I would really be happy
to take one month's break and update myself and that becomes a challenge
for blind students or students with disabilities who are using assistive
technology. Because the technology is moving so fast, the challenge for us
is to keep up with the work or keep up with the technology. This definitely
complicates the pursuit of academic work, and I understand, Cheryl, you joined
this work first, and then you got into the technology. For me, it would be
impossible to keep up with that. You would really require so much time to
get out of it. You know just to get into it was a quite frustrating process
start with, the three months was really dedicated to learning the skills
of computer and JAWS.
Cheryl: But, in order to learn the technology, students must
have the commitments and support of both community and university members
who will open up opportunities and spaces to experience new learning, which
is another layer added to the general technology discussion. I know that
universities as educational centers or as institutions of higher learning
can help to support our connection to access technologies in different ways.
Furthermore, they can bridge the gap between themselves and community agencies
in meaningful ways in order to provide necessary supports. Now in terms of,
helping to make that connection to community, universities must consider
the following: one, take an interest in the agencies like VESID and CBVH
have technologies in their inventories. The technologies used in the home/
community could then be duplicated within the academic context. Two, universities
could share with agencies their few, but skilled specialized technologists.
Three, agencies could conduct "first level" trainings while the university
conduct "advanced level" technology trainings.
Unfortunately, my experience in the first two to three years as
a doctoral student was that I was trying to explain what I didn't know.
But also I became part of the university's experiments. Maybe the technologies
would work and maybe they would not? And I would have to just wait to see
if the adaptive technology would cause the network failure. So much of our
success in getting universities to institute the technology depend on our
use of it, whether it is in poor or good working condition. We are the experimenters
in computer development and design, the Beta Testers as it were. Our understanding
of how configurations. Of the hard and software work at various levels is
critical.
And so, someone who could just come in, and I've been around a
few skilled and trained technicians who can come in and who can look at the
system and can identify, pretty soon where the concerns are and where they
need to make some adjustments to the system or viable recommendations to
the administration. So I know that's another way. The university can help
support students with disabilities to connect with access technology by creating
demonstration sites where we're able to, where they are able to seriously
problem solve with the technologies upfront. That is, where they can work
on the computers first and then download everything to the network and then
the students can use them. So the students are never involved behind the
scenes in the problem-solving phase and they're never involved in the actual
implementing phase of the general technology installations, upgrade and maintenance.
It should be ready for them; it is a part of the contract that comes with
being a student here at the university.
Jags: I guess the point that you are trying to emphasize
here is that one of the accommodations is that technology needs to be kept
updated. There should be a strong technical support in terms of having the
people who are skilled to be with assistive technology which is generally
missing in most universities. Especially in our university, it has been missing
so far. And when you talk about accommodations, you know accommodations in
general as you were saying, when anything new comes up it's downloaded on
the network and every student has access to it. A student doesn't have to
be bothered by it, whether it's going to be broke or not. If a student gets
stuck, there is a technical staff to take care of it. The only thing that
the technical staff of the university would know is how to install the software,
nothing beyond that if anyone is stuck, they're not in a position to help
in the process. And that's a lack of the commitment of the university to
ensure accommodation. Because accommodation will not mean just getting the
software, but also to take care of the problems in the software. So, where
do we go to take care of these problems, really?
Jags: Actually, that's the thing. So it's your problem.
Either you make it or you just keep quiet.
Cheryl: From the time that I've been here there has been
literally no one who has known how to effectively intervene. How I got through
was involving myself in with what is has been termed "communities of practice."
Within this community framework people who I work with literally help me
get information and skills through their own experience with the general
technology. And so it's a practice that is voluntary and that has been reinforced
over and over again.... In terms of faculty, I know what's important is that
faculty at some point in their career, if they should have but one student
with a disability, they should be in active consultation with that student
about their accommodations to access technology. If they only meet once or
twice, it's worthwhile because if for God's sake the technology is not coming
through, well then faculty too are affected. They are affected by the quality
of the work of that student. For sure, faculty do not get to see the progress
that they intended on witnessing through their student.
And the faculty is one of the better advocates. They have some power
within their departments. At the very least you know they can say, "I want
my student to have equality in my classroom." They can also petition to the
university who can in turn intervene in the process. But somehow many faculty
feel removed from the process totally. And so when the student is in crisis,
they don't understand what to do and they don't know where to go. And by
that time it's too late.
Jags: It is a well-known fact that millions of Americans,
who are more than fifty years old, do not find themselves very comfortable
with computers and they remain computer illiterate. Does that mean that these
people in the older generation should be deprived of the access to information?
This generation of people has the equal right to have an access to the information
even if they are not comfortable with computers in this era of I.T. revolution.
This category of people will require accommodations and one of the major
accommodations that they need is that they would need the information and
the literature in the alternative format than the one in e-format.
Similarly, in the context of accommodations for blind and the visually
impaired students, we need to recognize that technology has been changing
or developing rapidly. While they have the right to have an access to the
accommodations made possible through the latest developments in the technology,
no particular form of accommodation should be imposed.
OnCampus students show us the many ways that competent people
look, behave, and communicate. They help us develop skills conversing with
people who don't speak, or who communicate in unique ways. They help us learn
how to develop relationships with people who seem quite different from us.
They help us learn that there are many important ways that we are all the
same.
OnCampus students help faculty think differently about how,
and who, they teach. OnCampus students bring the class a variety of
[not curricular, but more like strategies, I can't find the word] adaptations
that demonstrate innovative ways to teach all students. They make unique
contributions that add to the richness of the course for all students. They
demonstrate the many ways that competent students look, behave, and communicate.
They demonstrate to faculty that learning, and intelligence, are expressed
in many ways.
I have been profoundly deaf since birth. My first language was
spoken English; I did not grow up with sign language, whether American Sign
Language (ASL) or Signed English. I did not use sign language interpreters
in an academic setting until I was 25 years old and a first-year law student.
In the three years of law school, my classes were no more than one hour
long. Given the one-hour duration, I could process the information and glean
something from class, despite my fatigue.
However, when I entered the doctoral program in the Cultural Foundations
of Education, a program within the School of Education, at Syracuse University
in the fall of 2001, I discovered that all of my courses were three-hour
classes that met once a week. As a Disability Studies major, I took a number
of courses in disability-related areas. Having worked as a disability rights
attorney, I was familiar with the material, and the pace of the classes was
moderate so that despite my fatigue from the three hour classes, I could
follow and participate in the discussion with the aid of interpreters.
One class, however, was a different story. It was a course in
Marxist cultural studies taught by Professor Don Mitchell who spoke rapidly,
asked many questions, and pushed us long and hard during our three hours
together. Professor Mitchell's teaching style was Socratic; he liked to fire
questions, stimulating a rapid and free-wheeling discussion. The material
was conceptually difficult, completely unfamiliar to me, and every week I
left class exhausted and frustrated. Despite two breaks, I found myself struggling
not to tune out after the second hour. After the first hour with the interpreters,
my ability to process information declined. By the third hour, I found myself
working very hard to stay focused on what the interpreters were signing.
This fatigued me even more. It was hard not to daydream. I estimated that
I missed up to 40% of the discussion because of fatigue. Indeed, I was shocked
to receive the notes from a class notetaker:
I'll tell you what is real: my amazement in realizing from the notetaker's notes one night that I could not, for the life of me, recall the interpreters conveying that information that was appearing in the notes. I read the notes carefully, and based on a rough estimate I figured that about 40% of the notes were new to me (Schwartz E-mail to Dr. Taylor, 3/10/02).It became quite obvious to me that the process of interpreting three hours of rapid-fire discussion involving complex and difficult material has its limits.
From my perspective, reading signs (translating the signs into
English in my head) requires cognitive effort, which, over three hours, with
short breaks, degrades my ability to grasp complex information. This is a
big source of mental fatigue. According to an E-mail message I sent Dr. Taylor:
I spend my time processing signs into English and thinking over the concepts. It is a lot of work, and with sign interpreters the margin for responding is razor thin. It is like trying to jump aboard a fast train while holding a tray with a raw egg on it. CART, on the other hand, presents to me the written English inside a screen; I don't have to do any translating, I can get right into the meat and potatoes of the ideas, and the screen is large enough so that I can ponder for approximately 30-45 seconds or check my notes (Schwartz E-mail to Dr. Taylor, 3/11/02).From the interpreters' standpoint, most are not expected to be well-versed in, or to master, the subject matter of the course they interpret. They do not learn or study the concepts-and may not understand what is being discussed in class. Interpreting a dense and difficult course can be just as exhausting for the interpreter.
The following semester, Professor Mitchell offered a course
on Karl Marx's magnum opus, Capital, and I desperately wanted to take it.
Yet, I was deeply concerned about the problem of fatigue in this course.
I wanted to try something new, something different, something with the potential
to reduce my fatigue and enhance my learning from class discussion: CART.
CART stands for either "Communications Access Realtime Translation"
(U.S. Department of Labor, National Court Reporters Association) or "Computer-Aided
Real-time Translation" (Caption Advantage). CART involves in-class (on-site)
transcription by a trained court reporter or stenographer using a stenographic
machine, a laptop computer, and specialized software, which are provided
by the reporter or stenographer. The reporter requires nothing more sophisticated
than an electrical outlet. CART can also be provided from a remote location;
this, however, would require the hard-wiring of classrooms.
2
According to the National Court Reporters Association, CART
is a word-for-word speech-to-text interpreting service for people who need
communication access. Unlike computerized notetaking or abbreviation systems,
which summarize information for the deaf consumer, CART provides a complete
translation of all spoken words and environmental sounds, empowering the
consumer to decide for herself what information is important to her. CART
consumers include people with hearing loss; individuals with cognitive or
motor challenges; anyone desiring to improve reading/language skills; and
those with other communication barriers. Caption Advantage, a national company
that provides closed captioning and real-time translation, describes CART
as an acronym for Computer-Aided Real-time Translation, referring to the
use of stenographic shorthand skills to produce real-time text on a computer
screen. As Caption Advantage describes it, CART involves a reporter with
a notebook computer and a stenographic keyboard, sitting next to a deaf or
hard of hearing person. The CART reporter types everything that is spoken
(as well as nonverbal conduct), and the screen on the notebook is turned
so that the deaf or hard of hearing person can read it. In contrast with
a computer keyboard, a stenographic machine is silent. I have seen CART
at several national deaf conferences and appreciated the immediate access
to real-time English with little or no attendant fatigue. Based on what I
saw of CART, I requested the provision of CART services for Professor Mitchell's
class on Marx's Capital. I foresaw that an in-depth discussion of Marx's
magnum opus would be complex and difficult, and I wanted to test the efficacy
of reading the verbatim English dialogue scrolling up on a computer screen.
Initially Syracuse University denied my request. The Office of Disability
Services (ODS), responsible for crafting accommodations under the law for
students with disabilities, rejected my request, claiming that CART would
require "hard-wiring" all the classrooms on campus, to the tune of $400,000.
ODS also claimed that there were no CART providers in the Syracuse area.
I pointed out that I was asking for on-site CART, which did not require "hard
wiring," only an ordinary electrical outlet for the stenographer's equipment.
I also furnished the names of two CART providers in Syracuse. After some
internal deliberations within the university administration, the School of
Education agreed to provide CART for my Marx course and established it as
a pilot study to be evaluated by Dr. Steve Taylor. Dr. Taylor filed an evaluation
plan, "How Does Stenographic Transcription Work in a University Course?"
3
Pursuant to the pilot study, a certified court stenographer with experience
in the state and federal courts in Syracuse brought her stenographic machine
and a laptop to the class and provided me with CART in Professor Mitchell's
class for the duration of the semester. In addition to CART, I had one sign
language interpreter in class in order to "voice" for me during class discussions
and conversations with the professor and classmates before and after class
and during the breaks.
Professor Mitchell's teaching style, highly effective for teaching
the course content, was fast-paced and interactive. He worked closely with
the textual material, often referring to passages when talking about ideas
and asking questions. The students did likewise. I found that sign language
interpretation in Professor Mitchell's class did not lend itself well to
this teaching style (e.g., it was extremely difficult to both follow the
signing and read text at the same time). With CART, however, I was able to
check my notes, review passages in the textbook, jot down ideas, and confer
briefly with a colleague sitting next to me, all while keeping tabs on the
class discussion. How? The laptop screen was large enough (approximately
20 lines) so that scrolling text remained on the screen long enough for me
to read it and do other things. With sign language interpreters, I could
not look away for an extended period of time (to look around the room, take
notes, refer to textual material, or even rest my eyes) without losing track
of the discussion.
The transcripts of the Marx class show that the professor's
class covered material that was intellectually challenging, requiring a high
level of concentration on what was being said in "real-time" (i.e., as it
was being said). Here is an example:
Professor: So any commodity is its use-value, its exchange value, it is dead labor, it is labor that has been ossified. In the act of production those commodities are given new life. Right? By being used up and transferred into a new commodity. There is a wonderful mystery to all of this, what he is talking about.... [Marx] is always playing with that language in here, but he does want to point out and says it at one point, in fact, at the top of [page] 179, labour uses up its material forces, its subject and its instruments, consumes them, and is therefore a process of consumption (Transcript, 2/11/02).Highly theoretical and abstract, Marx's Capital used concepts, words, and proper names that posed a challenge for Anne Messineo, the CART captioner. Accordingly, under the professor's supervision, I prepared a 14-page "List of Marxist Terms" for Ms. Messineo to include in the dictionary contained within her software so as to improve her ability to type accurately. The list included such terminology as "anarcho-syndicalism," "Bonapartism," and "congelation of homogeneous human labor." There are no accepted signs for these concepts in American Sign Language, and sign language interpretation would require the time-consuming process of fingerspelling each word into English. Take "anarcho-syndicalism," for example: it is an eight-syllable word, and in the hands of an interpreter, it would take approximately six seconds to fingerspell the word (assuming the interpreter knew how to spell it), but for Ms. Messineo, typing the word would take the same amount of time it took to pronounce it (about two seconds). Put simply, CART entails the ability to capture rapidly word for word the complex discussion, a feat very difficult to replicate with sign language interpreters.
CART transcripts of Professor Mitchell's class, ranging in
length from 75 to 100 pages per class, provided a verbatim record of classroom
discussions. The transcripts were posted on Professor Mitchell's course web
site several days after class and were available for review by all students:
Professor: Okay. The first thing to note is if you look to my web page on the department site there is now a thing that says "GEO 500 transcripts." You can, if you so desire, read the transcript of everything we talked about in here. Not instantaneously, but within a few days after each class. It's raw, unedited, and so you get to hear us at our most inarticulate...last week's was a hundred pages, something like that (Transcript, 2/4/02).Because all the students in my class could access the transcripts, CART benefited for these students who needed to check on a point raised in class. Even those students who missed class had a record of the class discussion. As researcher Aaron Steinfeld points out in an article titled, "The Case for Real-time Captioning in Classrooms," ...the inclusion of captions in a classroom dramatically increases a deaf or hard-of-hearing person's ability to comprehend the speaker. In addition, providing captions to hearing people also seems to enhance verbal comprehension. The increased comprehension for both hearing and deaf students will likely lead to a better learning environment and improved information transfer between the teacher and the students.
When asked whether any other students made use of the CART transcripts, Professor Mitchell said:
Yes. I know of at least two, plus me. While I do not re-read all of my own words-that would be horrible-I have liked being able to go back and look at how I developed an answer to a particular question...especially since I am working on a chapter right now that relates to some of the things we discuss in class. I know that students look at it before they write their next week's analytical paper, as a means of reminding themselves of key ideas and issues... (3/13/02).Even the professor noticed a difference between CART and sign language interpreters:
The most noticeable aspect is how much less tired and more alert Michael is as the class wears on. At the end of two hours of signing, Michael was shattered, and it was apparent that he often more or less checked out for the last part of class. It was just too taxing. This has not been the case with CART. He is as fresh and alert as any of us by the end now. Michael still does not talk as much as I would like him to, but he talks more than he did (Mitchell to Taylor, 3/13/02).A sign language interpreter who observed me in the professor's fall and spring courses confirmed this observation:
I have noticed Michael appears to be less "wiped out." I am assuming that he understands the content better with CART. He is able to rest his eyes and not miss what was said, now that CART captures everything that is said. Watching two interpreters switch ever 20-30 minutes for three hours, in the last course must have been tough (Decker to Taylor, 3/21/02).This is not to argue that interpreters are not capable or qualified; rather the process of reading signs over three hours breaks down, and I could not remember up to 40% of what had transpired. My mind was tired, and my ability to retain information and to think was a casualty of that fatigue.
Anecdotal evidence from my class suggests that CART
may have had a positive effect on the classroom atmosphere. Students expressed
great interest in Ms. Messineo's equipment, with one student exclaiming,
"CART is 'cool'." Once the professor introduced Ms. Messineo in the first
class, the students accepted her as part of the class. Occasionally the professor
joked with Ms. Messineo, and because she took it with good humor, everyone
was relaxed with her. Indeed, according to the professor, both Ms. Messineo
and the interpreter were accepted by students in his class:
The effect is salutary. Very quickly Anne became part of the class, as do interpreters. The difference is that we do not have to back up as frequently to go over a point that an interpreter either may have missed, since interpreting by definition means interpreting (emphasis) or just because interpreting is necessarily fairly slow. Students very quickly begin to take both the interpreter and the transcriber for granted in the class and do not mind when either asks for a clarification (Mitchell to Taylor, 3/13/02).In short, CART was appropriate for Professor Mitchell's course on Marx. The difficulty of the material, the rapid-fire nature of the class discussion, the duration of the class session, and the complex vocabulary of the participants established a case for me using CART in Professor Mitchell's classroom. CART's ability to capture verbatim English met my need for access to the spoken English, and in doing so, afforded me effective communication access. CART not only reduced my fatigue and enabled me to process the information more readily in class; it also benefited the other students by providing them with a transcript of the class discussion. Everyone benefited from the common bridge of communication supported by CART.
Defense No. 1: The Floodgate Theory
University administrators argued that arranging
CART for one student would open the floodgates, with deaf and hard of hearing
students clamoring for CART, thereby draining the school's budget. This argument
is misplaced. For the 2002 spring semester, only two deaf students, an undergraduate
in Engineering and me, requested CART. The undergraduate used cued speech
transliteration (in contrast to sign language, this is a speech-based communication
tool for hearing-impaired people that was developed to make lip-reading easier)
in other courses. There was another undergraduate, a user of cued speech
transliteration, who expressed an interest in CART services for one or more
classes. The problem for these two students was that cued speech transliterators
are rare in Syracuse. The two students often went to class without a cued
speech transliterator; for them, CART would have filled the void.
The ODS floodgate argument mistakenly assumes that
all deaf students think alike, and that all would want CART. A deaf master's
level student about to graduate told me that he preferred sign language interpreters
over CART. A deaf graduate student in Business Administration is satisfied
with his interpreters. Even I did not demand CART for my other two courses
because, as I explained earlier, I knew the material well, the pace was slower,
and the interpreters were effective as communicators.
Thus I propose a guideline to help the university
determine the appropriateness of CART. In order to decide whether CART would
be effective as opposed to sign language interpretation or cued speech transliteration,
the university needs to engage in an individually-based assessment of need
which would take into consideration the following factors:
For example, the students who would benefit from
CART in all their classes would be those who had not yet acquired an alternative
communications means such as sign language or lip-reading, with or without
cued speech (an example might be someone who experienced severe hearing loss
later in life). Another example is a difficult and complex course like my
Marx course, for which CART proved effective in documenting the class discussion.
Most deaf or hard of hearing students appreciate a mix of accommodations;
assuming interpreters and cued speech transliterators are available, students
would be satisfied with that kind of accommodation in a class that was short
in duration, offered familiar material, and enjoyed a slow to moderate pace.
As the ADA stresses, the university has to evaluate CART on a case-by-case
basis; there is no room for a floodgate theory that by its very nature ignores
the individualized nature of each person's request.
Defense No. 2: The Low Availability of CART
Providers
ODS argued there were no CART providers in the
region, and this relieved the university of the obligation to consider CART.
Contrary to this claim, because Syracuse is home to a number of state and
federal courts, there were a number of CART captioners who were available
to work at Syracuse University. The CART captioner in the Marx course knew
of two other persons in the Syracuse area who were capable of providing CART
services. Instead of making a blanket claim that no one existed to fill the
need for CART services, the university had an obligation to research the
availability of these CART captioners to Syracuse University. The availability
might depend on different factors (e.g., personal considerations, a current
commitment to other projects, the possibility of a long-term arrangement
with Syracuse University).
Since court stenographers and television closed-captioning
transcribers can learn to provide CART in an academic setting, there ought
to be a substantial pool of potential CART providers in Central New York.
A web search under "Communications Access Realtime Translation" yielded the
names of 32 court reporters in the immediate Syracuse area. To provide CART
services, a stenographer needs access to equipment and special software.
According to Ms. Messineo, a court reporter providing CART in an academic
environment like Syracuse University needs to feel comfortable in that kind
of environment (most have experience providing stenography in the courtroom).
The Department of Labor predicts that the demand
for real-time translating and broadcast captioning will result in employment
growth of court reporters. Not only does federal legislation mandate that
by 2006 the captioning of all new television programming for the deaf and
hard-of-hearing; the ADA gives deaf and hard-of-hearing students in colleges
and universities the right to request access to real-time translation in
their classes. Both of these factors are expected to increase demand for
trained stenographic court reporters to provide real-time captioning services.
4
Defense No. 3: The High Costs of CART
Services
Syracuse University claimed CART was too expensive.
True, CART does not come cheaply. For the Marx course, the School of Education
paid $125 per hour for CART services. This covered Ms. Messineo's in-class
time, equipment and updated CART software, and out-of-class time entering
vocabulary into her software and editing the transcripts after class. Given
Ms. Messineo's high level skills, equipment and software costs, work in class
and outside class, flexibility to work both during the day and evenings,
student-friendly approach, and willingness and ability to provide CART in
courses with diverse content (e.g., Marxist theory, physics), Ms. Messineo's
fee was reasonable.
For a 3-hour course in a 14-week semester, the
captioner's fee totaled $5,250 for CART services for the semester. According
to a local interpreter referral agency that provides sign language interpreters
for Syracuse University, sign language interpretation is charged at approximately
$40 per hour starting in January, 2002. Two interpreters are normally assigned
for each class. For a 3-hour, 14-week semester course, the total would come
to $3,780. CART would be $1,470 more per course than sign language interpretation.
For a CART stenographer and one sign language interpreter, the cost would
be $6,930, a total of $3,150 more per course over the usual provision of
sign language interpretation. If Syracuse University needs to retain one
or two interpreters from out of town, the interpretation costs would rise
because travel is included.
Syracuse University is a multimillion-dollar institution,
and these sums are but a mere pittance for the university coffers. The Internal
Revenue Service offers private institutions like Syracuse a certain level
of tax relief. Clearly in this case, the costs of CART cannot support an
undue financial hardship argument. What the university needs to do is to
budget adequately for CART; this requires proactive planning and fundraising.
As the old adage goes, it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Defense No. 4: Other Computer-Based Systems
Syracuse University claimed C-Print was just as
effective as CART. That is not the case. C-Print is a "Computer-Aided Speech-to-Print
Transcription System" developed at the National Technical Institute for the
Deaf (NTID) in Rochester. C-Print uses two laptop computers (one for the
student and one for the transcriber). C-Print training requires 50-60 hours
of training through a manual and audiotapes, followed by participation in
a five-day workshop (this can be offered at a host institution). C-Print
provides a summary of lectures and discussions (it can be thought of as an
extensive note-taking system), rather than a verbatim transcript. The advantage
of C-Print is that since it uses two laptop computers, the student can make
comments by typing on the laptop and having the transcriber read the comments
out loud.
The disadvantages of C-Print are: (1) the transcriber
filters class materials and makes decisions about which information to record;
(2) since the transcription is not verbatim, C-Print is not conducive to
classroom interaction and discussion; and (3) it is not intended for three-hour
courses. C-Print transcribers do not have nearly the level of training of
CART reporters. Moreover, according to a representative at NTID, C-Print
would not be appropriate for a three-hour course. A document from NTID states,
"Captionists cannot type using C-Print for more than an hour without risking
physical harm to wrist and hands" (stenography machines are designed differently
than computer keyboards; a court reporter can caption or translate for up
to three hours at a time).
Finally, CART challenges us to push the envelope-to
go beyond compliance with the law. Why settle for just one kind of accommodation
when state of the art technology can maximize the scholastic experience of
the student?
The following dictionary is based on the principles
of universal design of instruction. These accommodations are not a "laundry
list" from which student and office of disability services staff choose;
rather, they are a listing of modifications that can be used in the classroom
to accommodate impairments and differences-in many cases these accommodations
can also enhance the classroom environment and experience and provide for
the full participation of all students in that classroom.
Accessible classroom: Accessing the classroom
is one of the most important issues in accommodation. A student should not
modify his or her schedule because a classroom in inaccessible; the class
should be moved to an accessible room.
Adequate illumination: Too harsh or too
little lighting in the classroom can affect students with and without visual
impairments.
Advance notice of schedule/syllabus changes:
This modification is necessary for students with visual impairments and
learning disabilities who rely on recorded or electronic format texts for
course readings. Any changes to the schedule or syllabus should be made
in a timely manner (at least four weeks) so that their texts can be made
available through the office of disability services to meet the schedules
changes. Also, this affords all students in the class the opportunity to
adjust their own reading/work schedules for the course.
Alphasmart: This is a small keyboard/display
device the size of a notebook that does not require an outlet. Students can
use it to take notes in the classroom and can then upload their notes into
a word processing program on their computers.
Alternative/electronic format: Students
might require course material in a variety of formats at different times
(e.g., course readers in electronic format, but class handouts in Braille).
Print material is usually provided in three formats: Braille, on tape, and
electronically. The electronic format materials can be accessed through
a computer monitor, either in the original font or in large print through
a screen magnifier or through a screen reader program such as JAWS. Although
persons with visual impairments usually use Braille, persons with visual
impairments and learning disabilities use recorded and electronic formats.
Electronic formats can benefit many students who do not wish to waste paper
to print material.
Assistance with "bubble sheets": Students
with orthopedic/mobility impairments, learning, or psychiatric disabilities
might require amanuensis when taking a mechanically graded test ("bubble
sheet"). Some learning disabilities affect tracking skills, which might
make it difficult for students to keep track of lines and bubbles. The same
thing might happen with students who are taking medications for psychiatric
illness or other health impairments.
Braille: Named after its inventor, Louis
Braille (1809-1852), Braille is a system of printing or writing in which
the characters consist of raised dots to be read by the fingers.
Breaks during class (or examinations): Although
breaks during class are beneficial for Deaf students who use interpreter
services, it is also beneficial for all students, as they are able to focus
their concentration because they know when breaks will occur. This accommodation
is also beneficial to students with learning disabilities, mobility impairments,
psychiatric disabilities, and other health impairments, as it permits students
to recover from fatigue, re-focus on the test, and sustain attention in shorter
time increments. Breaks could potentially be offered to all students, and
those who wish to forego the break continue taking the exam.
Captions/Subtitles: Captioned videos/films
in class (or films that are subtitled) are beneficial not only to students
who are Deaf or have hearing impairments and students with some learning
disabilities, but also to students for whom reading the captions reinforces
their learning.
CART: Communication Access Real-Time
Transcription (CART) is a communication system in which a stenographer produces
real time text on a computer, which is either projected onto a screen, or
is read from the computer monitor. This technology benefits not only the
student for whom this accommodation is being provided, but also the other
students in the class, as they are able to use the transcript for their notes,
as well as the professor, as he or she is able to evaluate his or her teaching
and save the transcript for future use.
Chart program: This software provides
graphic organizers that can be used in the classroom for the benefit of all
students, including students who might find it difficult to follow handwritten
charts/graphic organizers, and for independent study.
Comfortable temperature in the classroom:
Like adequate lighting and reduced noise in the classroom, a comfortable
temperature in the classroom is important. Too cold or too hot temperatures
in the classroom may exacerbate fatigue in students with health impairments
(and in all students) or may impede concentration on course material.
Computer: Computers in the classroom are
useful in many ways. In "smart classrooms," a computer can take the place
of a chalkboard or dry erase board, as the instructor can use it for notes,
which benefits all students in that the notes are completely legible. Students
can use notebook computers to take notes; and students who have visual or
mobility impairments and learning disabilities can use a computer for exams.
Dictation/voice recognition software: Students
with visual and mobility impairments can use this software, as well as students
with learning disabilities. People who find it difficult to sit in front
of the computer and start composing at the keyboard can also use this software.