Transcript Language matters: Reducing bias when writing about disability

Presidential Commission on Persons with Disabilities
◦ Advise the President
◦ Promote accessibility
◦ Collaborate and advocate
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“Accessibility” has multiple meanings
◦ Audience
◦ Frame
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Promote inclusion
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Enhance recruitment and marketing
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Increase retention and graduation rates
Universal design is the design of products and
environments to be usable by all people, to
the greatest extent possible, without the need
for adaptation or specialized design.
◦ 1997 NC State University, The Center for Universal
Design (Ron Mace)
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Aging population, especially Baby Boomers
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Mobile technologies
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Profitability
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Legislation
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Principle One: The design is useful and
marketable to people with diverse abilities
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Principle Two: The design
accommodates a wide range of
individual preferences and abilities.
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Principle Three: Use of the design is easy to
understand, regardless of the user's
experience, knowledge, language skills, or
current concentration level.
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Principle Four: The design communicates
necessary information effectively to the
user, regardless of ambient conditions or
the user's sensory abilities.
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Principle Five: The design minimizes
hazards and the adverse consequences
of accidental or unintended actions.
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Principle Six: The design can be used efficiently
and comfortably and with a minimum of fatigue.
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Principle Seven: Appropriate size and space is
provided for approach, reach, manipulation, and
use regardless of user's body size, posture, or
mobility.
Automatic doors
Store doors
Subway doors
Hotel entrance
Landscaping
Sidewalk
Moving piano up stairs
Who wants to walk up 30 flights?
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Learning
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Attitudes
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Technology
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Design of instruction to be usable by all
students, without the need for adaptation or
specialized design.
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Provides students with a wide range of
abilities, disabilities, ethnic backgrounds,
language skills, and learning styles
Multiple means of representation, expression,
and engagement.
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Awareness of cultural and disability etiquette
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Person-first language
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Recognition of disability as a difference, not
as pathology
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Accessible webpages
Ability to navigate by the control of your
choice: links, paragraphs, headings, forms,
etc.
◦ More information
◦ Click here for more information
◦ For more information, click here
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Captioning
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Text readability
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Supports different learning styles
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Helps index content so it can be searched
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Provides access to media in noisy
environments
Improves understanding of content and
overall language skills
TVs in Sports Bar
Health club TVs
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Text-based information should be readily
understood by the intended audience(s)
Readability analyzes indicate the number of
years of education that a person needs to
be able to understand the text easily on the
first reading
Polysyllabic words and long, complex
sentences increase reading difficulty
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Student grade appeal (contained in the
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New York Times
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Wall Street Journal
Academic Policies and Procedures
Manual)
All analyses used the readability calculator available at
readability calculator
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The following procedures are available only for review of allegedly capricious
grading, and not for review of the judgment of an instructor in assessing the quality
of a student's work. Capricious grading, as that term is used herein, is limited to one
or more of the following:
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the assignment of a grade to a particular undergraduate student on some basis other than performance in the
course;
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the assignment of a grade to a particular undergraduate student by more exacting or demanding standards than
were applied to other undergraduate students in that section;
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the assignment of a grade by a substantial departure from the instructor's criteria distributed in writing during
the first fourth of a course.
The assessment of the quality of a student's academic performance is one of the
major professional responsibilities of university faculty members and is solely and
properly their responsibility. It is essential for the standards of the academic
programs at Northern Illinois University and the integrity of the degrees conferred
by this university that the professional judgments of faculty members not be subject
to pressures or other interference from any source. In order to assure the equitable
assessment of a student's academic abilities, faculty are to maintain grading
materials in accordance with Section III, Item 5,F.
The Flub Watch Never Stops for Obama’s Team
Helen Cooper
2/5/2012
WASHINGTON — For Brad Woodhouse, the spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, it was
when he came across a Twitter post about a CNN interview in which Mitt Romney seemd to shrug off
concern for the very poor. And Bill Burton’s moment came a week and a half ago while he was in his
family room watching Mr. Romney take Newt Gingrich to task for talking about putting a colony on the
moon. If someone made such a proposal to him, Mr. Romney said, “I’d say, ‘You’re fired.’ ”
Both moments were perceived by the Obama re-election campaign as another gift from Mr. Romney —
now dubbed “the gift that keeps on giving” by some on the Obama team. “Just when you thought we had
enough videotape about him firing people, he gives you one more,” Mr. Burton, who leads a political
action committee backing the president, said before laughing.
In the rarefied world that is dedicated to getting Mr. Obama re-elected, the battle has never been viewed
through the prism of how to beat Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum or Ron Paul. It has always been about
Mitt Romney.
Now as Mr. Romney appears to be cementing his position as the front-runner for the Republican
presidential nomination — he won the Nevada primary handily on Saturday — Mr. Obama’s aides and
campaign staff have intensified their focus….
Romney Builds Momentum
Janet Hook and Patrick O'Connor
2/6/2012
Mitt Romney, buoyed by a fresh victory in Nevada, appears to be shoring up support among the
conservative voters who once appeared tempted by his rivals, putting the former Massachusetts
governor in the strongest position since Republicans began voting a month ago.
After notching back-to-back victories in swing states, Mr. Romney could benefit from a pause over
the coming weeks in what has been a frenetic and topsy-turvy GOP presidential race. There are few
major states voting and no nationally televised debates until Feb. 22.
But it is a perilous stretch for Mr. Romney's rivals as they try to raise money and convince Republican
voters they have a real shot at the nomination.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, undaunted by his distant second-place finishes in Nevada and
Florida, pledged Sunday to take his campaign to the GOP convention this summer and sharpen the
contrast between himself and Mr. Romney….
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Incorporate these guidelines into your work
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Educate others
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Be an advocate
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NIU Presidential Commission on Persons with
Disabilities (www.niu.edu/pcpd)
DO-IT
◦ www.washington.edu/doit
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Center for Applied Special Technology
◦ www.cast.org/
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Text readability calculator
◦ www.online-utility.org/english/readability