Tag: media

Disability Rights’ Report On Treatment of People With #Disabilities in Mexican Institutions, This Sunday on Contact


It is a story where words fail to adequately describe the horror.

 

Tune in this Sunday at 7.30 p.m. when Contact presents an interview with Eric Rosenthal, director of Disability Rights International (DRI) regarding its scathing, ground-breaking report describing abusive and decrepit conditions in Mexican institutions for the developmentally and physically disabled.

 

The year-long investigation by DRI revealed what the report said was “atrocious and abusive conditions” that included lobotomies performed without consent, children missing from orphanages, widespread filth and squalor and an appalling lack of medical care. There are many instances where disabled patients were held in restraints for several hours at a time.

Mr. Rosenthal talks about these abuses were left to go unchecked and the response of the Mexican government. He also reflects on the continued viability of the concept of putting people, such as those with disabilities, in institutions. Is institutionalization an outdated and ineffective concept? dD

 

Hear more. Learn more. This Sunday at its new time –7.30 p.m. and make Contact …on VoicePrint.

 

VoicePrint can be accessed on the Secondary Audio Program of CBC Newsworld; on Star Choice (ch 825), ExpressVu (ch 49 and 967), Look TV (ch 400); Rogers Digital (ch 196), Eastlink Digital (ch 394); and Aliant Digital (ch 998); and and at www.voiceprintcanada.com.

The ‘R’ Word: Language does matter

The ‘R’ Word: Language does matter

By MICHAEL BACH

In the Ottawa Sun on Wednesday, Anthony Furey wrote a column titled ‘A lobbyist by any other name …’ in which he sought to denigrate lobbyists and the politics of language by which some re-fashion themselves as ‘government relations’ experts.

But he tracks the “history of their linguistics,” to use his phrase, by drawing a parallel with efforts to end the use of the ‘R’ word to label certain people and actions as deficient in some way. I won’t use the full word here; we all know what it is. It hurts too many people to hear it and to see it in print.

Almost universally, the commentary on this article on the Sun website and in social media was how offensive, demeaning and disrespectful Mr. Furey was in his use of the ‘R’ word. It’s as though he anticipated such overwhelming reaction.

In his article he dismisses efforts to remove use of the ‘R’ word from political and cultural discourse as ‘political correctness.’ That’s the question we need to take up. Does language matter? Does how we name ourselves and the world make any difference? Are social justice struggles to redefine our identities in more humane ways, stepping stones to a more inclusive society? Or simply histrionics?

For thousands of years people with intellectual disabilities have been denigrated, violated and rejected. In the 20th century, the Nazi regime made them a target and applied its methods. In the 21st century, the genetic technology revolution threatens the same outcome, but by sanitized means. Expunge the life pre-natally, it’s cleaner. Language does matter.

Throughout the centuries language has been used to organize rejection, often murder; then used to legalize it and produce an ethics to justify those actions.

Look at the “ethicist” Peter Singer, who argues there’s no need to use chimpanzees in medical experimentation when it can be done more justifiably on mentally “r**ded” people. If we didn’t have the language to separate human beings in such a fashion, we couldn’t build such a repulsive ethics.

When Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed in Birmingham in 1963, he wrote in his famous letter from the jail, to those who challenged his impatience for justice: “When you are forever fighting a degenerating sense of ‘nobodiness’— then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”

People with intellectual disabilities, their families and advocates are also impatient. We are impatient because two thirds of Canadians reject inclusion of children with intellectual disabilities in regular classrooms.

Education laws for decades cleaved the population into children defined by the ‘R’ word and the rest of children, the latter seen to be deserving of public education, the former not.

We are impatient because only 26% of working age adults with intellectual disabilities are employed, and over 75% live in poverty. We are impatient because too many people with intellectual disabilities become ‘nobodies’ in others’ eyes, which helps to explain the rates of abuse that are higher than any other population group.

We are impatient because we have so many stories to tell of people with intellectual disabilities who make extraordinary gifts and contributions to their families, communities, schools and workplaces, stories that don’t seem to get heard.

Mr. Furey is right. There’s a history of linguistics. You can trace it in blood. But we could change it … by ending the use of the ‘R” word.

Michael Bach is executive vice-president of the Canadian Association for Community Living, a national federation of over 40,000 members, 400 local associations and 13 provincial/territorial associations working to advance the human rights and full inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities (www.cacl.ca).

You can find the original article here – http://www.ottawasun.com/comment/columnists/anthony_furey/2011/01/11/16852216.html


Some follow up to the post I made earlier about the #disabled man who stood up for #student rights in the #UK

Following the interview I posted earlier this week, complaints have been made to the BBC. McIntyre has posted his thoughts on the interview to his blog, and says he finds the whole situation not that surprising. As for me, the whole situation has inspired me to keep tabs on how austerity measures are impacting people with disabilities, so look forward to more on that soon.

#Disabled Man w #CP gives #BBC a reality check! #solidarity @jodymcintyre

 

This video made my morning.  Setting aside some CP solidarity bias, this guy is awesome.  The BBC clearly wanted to seek public support against the protests against this video, but McIntyre did not let that happen.  I wish I could shake your hand man.

 

Here in Canada, we experienced similar incidents during and after the G20 where many people with disabilities were mistreated and the hands of police, and though people did fight back, the issues did not recieve nearly this much public attention.  People with disabilities were allegidly abused by police, or police accused other protesters of being mislead into attending.  We do have a mainstream disability movement, but where were they to support the victims of violence and seek the solidarity of others during the G20? (crickets chirping)

I’m starting to believe that the mainstream disability movement in Canada is happy to play victim, or stand by as a silent bystander while individuals fight for their rights.  Occasionally you might see a letter or two, but it seems like people are really afraid to make disability issues into public issues.  That is a shameful slap in the face to our history.  I congratulate McIntyre for taking the step to connect his issue, which could have easily become isolated as a disability issue, into a call for broader struggle. I hope someday we can fight beside you.

CANADIAN #GOVERNMENT TO BE TAKEN TO #COURT BY #BLIND WOMAN

A blind Toronto woman faces off against the Government of Canada later this
month, launching a Charter Challenge in Federal Court in Toronto to seek
improved government website access for blind and partially-sighted
Canadians.

Donna Jodhan has urged the Federal Government to live up to commitments to
make all of its websites fully accessible to Canadians with sight loss, for
four years.  “The Canadian Government knows the necessary standards, and
exactly what to do to meet them,” Ms. Jodhan states.  “No special equipment
is needed to bring web pages to W3C international standards.  But, because
they haven’t bothered – I feel forced to launch this Charter case.”

Ms. Jodhan is supported in her challenge by the Alliance for Equality of
Blind Canadians, a national organization of blind, deaf-blind and partially
sighted Canadians.  “The Canadian Government took a great step forward this
March by ratifying the United Nations Treaty on the Rights of Persons With
Disabilities,” Alliance President Robin East of Saskatoon says, “but they
still have not made their websites and related information fully accessible
to blind and partially sighted Canadians as the Convention requires.  Even
more outrageous, they’re spending taxpayer’s money fighting blind Canadians
through the courts!”

Ms. Jodhan explains that most web pages are designed with fully visual
orientation, for the vast majority of users.  The problem for blind
Canadians, Ms. Jodhan says, is that web pages written without “tags” or
“labels” – extra notations embedded in PDF forms and other online
documents – are not useful to users with sight loss, even with their own
adaptive computer screen readers.  “Because of this, we as blind Canadians
often have to wait for months before receiving information in a format that
we can read, or we must get sighted assistance to help us complete online
forms.  That means our right to the equality guaranteed under the Canadian
Charter of Rights, is trampled upon.”

Ms. Jodhan says that with properly coded websites, people with sight loss or
blindness would benefit professionally and personally just as much from
using the internet as sighted Canadians do.  “It’s simply one extra step in
writing pages.  Web developers don’t need additional software or hardware.
They should simply use accessibility experts and blind testers for their
projects, to ensure that every Government website can be accessed by all
Canadians in a meaningful manner”.

AEBC President Robin East cautions the Federal Government not to take Ms.
Jodhan’s court challenge lightly.  “It’s not the David versus Goliath fight
some people might think,” East comments.  “Ms. Jodhan won cases against Air
Canada at the Canadian Transport Agency, and Statistics Canada at the
Canadian Human Rights Commission.  She could come out of this battle with a
hat trick.  We want Donna to win this fight for full government website
access, because accessible and useable websites are vitally important to
Blind Canadians.”

Ms. Jodhan’s court challenge will be heard September 21 – 23, at 180 Queen
Street West in Toronto, from 9:30 a.m.

Web #Accessibility for #Cognitive #Disabilities and #Learning Difficulties

Web accessibility for people with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties is one of the most overlooked subtopics of general web      accessibility, despite it affecting the largest numbers. A large part of it is that there are so many conditions to understand in this area (far more than say visual or hearing impairments) and a lack of educational information available for learning about it.

In this article we will cover a few of the problems users with cognitive disabilities may have that can affect their ability to use the Web, as well as the things that developers can do to alleviate these problems and things they should avoid. A lot of what is covered will be well known and common sense to many, but is here for completeness.

What are Cognitive Disabilities and Learning Difficulties?

As with any aspect of accessibility, here we are less interested in specific conditions than we are with how they impact a person’s ability to use a website. These conditions affect a web user’s ability to perform one or more mental tasks. This includes problems with:

o   reading text

o   memory

o   problem solving

o   keeping focused (attention span)

o   computa          tion (for example calculations)

o   non-verbal learning (for example difficulty with written materials)

For example, let’s have a look at some basic personas:

o   Steve has problems processing text, particularly when words are spelt incorrectly or when sarcasm or metaphors are used (this is most likely dyslexia).

o   A                      lison has short-term memory problems with what she sees and hears. It is difficult for her to remember what she has already entered in long forms or previously read in articles split into multiple pages.

o   Jeremy has difficulty with problem solving. He struggles with unfamiliar circumstances, such as links to new places in a website or unclear form input error message     s (this could be as a result of intellect, emotional or executive function impairments).

o   Emily finds it difficult to focus on tasks, particularly when a web page has moving adverts or multiple pop-up windows.

o   Thomas has problems with numbers; it can be difficult for him to estimate the total cost of items when buying online or to solve simple maths-based

o   questions asked on some comment forms to prove he is not a spambot (this is most likely dyspraxia).

o   Kate can have problems associating a representation of an object with the object itself, such as associating a picture of an apple with a real apple. She finds it easier to understand audio information than written or pictorial content.

Users can sometimes have a combination of cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties, and they may also have physical disabilities. It is important to be aware of the range of conditions that might affect your users, but at the same time you must avoid strict categorisation as every person is unique in their abilities — it is rarely simple, and there really is no one size fits all solution. For example, someone who is in the autistic spectrum may have none of the issues listed, but as this spectrum is concerned with making human connections and communication, certain visual or written nuances that would be obvious even to someone with a severe learning difficulty that affected the processing of information may be missed by someone in this spectrum.
And someone with severe ADHD (inattention and hyperactivity) can find any task way more frustrating than what is considered as normal.

Areas to consider

You may find it difficult to create a web site that is accessible to all users with cognitive disabilities and learning difficulties because of the range of issues you need to consider.

You might find that a solution for one user is a hindrance to another, for example images could potentially be a distraction to someone who prefers text, even though combining content types is your best hope for universal accessibility. If you have a specific target group you can tailor content for that group, otherwise you have to tailor content for different information representations for different groups.

By following some simple guidelines you will be able to make your content available to as wide an audience as possible. A lot of this is fairly general web design best practices, but that’s what enables a lot of accessibility! Framing them in the context of cognitive disability should give you a better understanding of the area.

Consistency

The first thing you should think about when designing your content is consistency. Users should be able to learn what to expect from each new page of your site — the various features should be consistent with previous pages, in terms of style, location and function.

What, in particular, should we be aiming to make consistent? Lets go through them.

Navigation

After the content itself, the site navigation is possibly the most important thing to get right. Its position and functionality should not change across a site, and it should be easily identifiable as navigation, with intuitive menu options.

Fonts and Font Sizes

Do not use too many different fonts, and treat them as you would a colour palette. Stick to a small number, perhaps one font for headings and one font for body text. Introducing a lot of variation serves to introduce distractions and noise, and this is something we want to avoid at all costs.

Interactive Elements: Links and Buttons

It is important that users of any kind can recognise a link on your site. Links on a site need to follow the same style, and need to behave as a user would expect. Positioning, relevance, purpose and destination are all very important here.

The same goes for buttons, and there is much to be said for leaving buttons and other form controls as they are styled by the browser as this is  what many users expect forms on the Web to look like. This not only delivers consistency across your site, but across all sites. Controls that are already familiar to a user will likely be less confusing.

Structure

It is important that content is well organised and structured. HTML gives us a limited set of elements to organise our content. Although we may sometimes find this restrictive it can actually be a good thing because it helps us be consistent as well. This section discusses the different facets of structure.

Headings

Headings and subheadings should be clear, meaningful and properly nested — they are a guide to the content on a page. Ideally it should be possible to get a good idea of what the content is about just by reading the headings.

Lists

By their very nature lists require more concentration to scan through and              comprehend. Each item in a list should be short and concise, and further visual grouping of a list (eg using a different background colour to the rest of the page) – if you have a complicated concept to explain start with a list and then expand on each item under its own heading.

White space

White space is important for structure; without it all elements will merge in to one block and become incomprehensible. Look for good separation between headings, paragraphs, block quotes, etc. Pay particular attention to the spacing between columns of content; wide gutters or clear delineation with vertical
borders can help.

Clear Differentiation Between Content Types

Use colour, font weights and other styles to differentiate between types of content, for example a quoted phrase could be emphasised, form labels could be strong. This makes it easier for users to determine the type of content they are looking at a glance.

Focus

Most users of websites are task-driven – they have a task that they want to perform, and they want to do it without distraction, as quickly as possible. It can be easy to distract attention from your content, so there are certain things to avoid, which we shall talk about now.

Contrasting Blocks of Colour

It is natural that a users eye will be drawn to the more colourful areas of the page, so avoid overly bright or intricate side columns or other needless distractions. You want to encourage users to be focused on the most important page content or functionality.

Unexpected Sound

Avoid sounds that are played without the user specifically interacting with the source – this again will cause confusion.

Animations and Other Moving Content

Movement on a page can be very distracting, especially if it happens automatically, without the user having any warning that is going to happen. The only place there should be movement is on the element the user is interacting with at that moment, for example a highlight on a navigation menu option, or playing a video when the user chooses to.

Pop Ups and New Tabs

Pop up windows and automatically loading content in new tabs moves attention away from the whole page — more confusion. In addition, popups usually tend to be adverts, therefore users tend to dismiss them regardless of their content.

Readability

Good readability guidelines apply to all text on your page, whether in navigation, graphics or just plain content. The most important part of any page is the content, and the following guidelines will help you make your content as readable and intuitive as possible.

Adequate Text Size and Line Height

A font size of 10px or 11px is often considered an acceptable minimum, however I would recommend 12px or 13px depending on the font (I am talking computed sizes here — you would of course set text size using a relative unit such as ems or percentage in your CSS). Although browsers have controls to adjust
font sizes or zoom the entire page, there are no guarantees that a user will know how to use them.

Line height should be approximately one and a half times the font size.

Limited Line Length

Long line lengths can be difficult to read in some circumstances. Contrary to popular belief not all users have problems with long lines, but users with reading problems often do. Stick to a maximum of 70–80 characters of text per line.

Colour Contrast

As for other users, good contrast between foreground and background is important. In addition, using colour to differentiate between links and regular text can help.

Short Paragraphs

Write short paragraphs, each one focused on a single point or idea.

Transformability

Transformability means that your content can be changed in ways to suit different users. We will look at various mechanisms you can employ to support transformability in this section.

Support Text Resizing

The most basic type of transformation is changing text size. Your design should be able to support a font size increase of at least 200%; 300% preferably. This is less of an issue now that most browsers support full page zooming, but there are still users that would prefer to increase font size without changing the width of the page, the images, or the containing columns.

Support user styles

Make it easy for users to apply their own styles via user stylesheets. Write good clean CSS, using low specificity on selectors and avoiding the use of !important. Ensure it Works Without Images, Scripting or Styles

Test that the site works without images, scripting or styles at all. This is the ultimate fallback for all users in all situations, and it makes it easier for them to provide a usable baseline like this, rather than them having to write their own style sheet. It is also a good test of the structure of your content.

Provide an API or Feed

Provide an API or a feed to allow others to re-format your content. Ultimately it may not be possible to cater for all users on one site, but if other developers are able to take your content and reformat it for different situations, you will reach an even wider and more diverse audience.

Twitter is a great example of what can be done with an API. Not only is content and the ability to tweet available from the website but there are many different client applications that can be tailored to different users needs.
Accessible Twitter is an alternative to the Twitter website, designed and optimised to be easier to use by disabled users.

Another example is Easy YouTube,
created by Christian Heilmann. It is an interface to YouTube specifically designed for users with learning difficulties. As Christian himself says in the documentation, without the availability of various APIs this would not have been possible.

Content

Now on to the content itself, the most important part of a site. If you have marked up and structured your content correctly then it should be convertible to other forms, but if the content itself is broken then you have gone wrong from the beginning.

Spelling and Grammar

Most users can probably get some meaning from content that has grammatical errors or spelling mistakes, but they can render a word or sentence completely meaningless to users with reading difficulties.

For commercial sites I would strongly advise using the services of a proof reader or professional copy editor.

For sites without a commercial budget, spell and grammar checkers are built in to most applications used to write content, so use them, but make sure you also give your content a human proof read as best you can.

Definition           s of Terms

Define any abbreviations, acronyms or technical terms. Provide a glossary for complicated or technical subjects. Avoid jargon if you can, but not to the point of removing clarity from the content.

One Subject

Stick to the subject of your page; be focused and avoid digression.

Summarise

Summarise the content of your page as an introductory paragraph. This allows your user to determine if this is the content they are looking for early on to avoid frustration.

Mix Content Types

Different users may find different forms of content easier to consume. For one user lots of images and less text may be more understandable, whereas for another the same content spoken in a video might be better.

Wherever resources allow, try to provide your content in multiple formats. Don’t forget to caption videos and transcribe audio content.

Obviously this can make content very editorially intensive, so is not possible in all cases, but if you have a product to sell and you include a text description, images showing individual features and a video clip of the product in use, this will not only constitute a better sales pitch, it will also allow users to pick the content type that works best for them.

It is also important to try and avoid making mixed content distracting. As previously mentioned, a solution for one user may be a hindrance to another. Sensible designs and interactions are key here. If you are mixing text with images perhaps separate the two rather than interspersing the images within the text. Display the images in a slideshow rather than showing them all at once, and try and provide the same information with images alone. A user can then choose to read the text or go through the slideshow to get the same content.

Conclusions

You may think that a lot of the points made in this article are nothing more than common sense, and you would be absolutely right! The good news is that the best strategy for creating a site accessible to those with cognitive or learning difficulties is to provide clear and straight forward content in an easy to use interface with few distractions. This is what we want to provide our users with in most circumstances anyway, so it only takes a little more care and thought to avoid the pit falls.

The benefits go beyond what is traditionally thought of as accessibility as well. Something as simple as good grammar can greatly increase comprehension, especially for readers who are not fluent in the language a document is written in.

There is some bad news unfortunately – a single interface or style of content is never going to be able to cater for all users in all circumstances. This gives further weight to the idea of exposing content via a good API or feed. The same content can be repurposed for display in a different format, on other web sites, or on devices such as mobile phones.

Reproduced from http://dev.opera.com/articles/view/cognitive-disability-learning-difficulty/

Air Canada breaks dying boy’s #wheelchair – this is not news people!!!

I just wanted to make a quick comment about the attention this story is getting in the news If you haven’t read it yet, you can check out the Toronto Star’s article.

I just feel that while yes this is a very upsetting and frustrating issue, it happens a lot.  I hope that some serious attention will come out of this issue and people in the airline industry will realize that people with disabilities have had enough.  In my own social circle I can count at least five people who have had their wheelchairs damaged by airlines.

I did read a really great blog post about how Air Canada should pay for the damage that was done, and while this is true, its kind of a band-aid solution. What really needs to happen is some changes in airline procedures so that these things don’t happen in the first place.

Wheelchairs are not just property, they are what allows that person to participate (though not yet fully) in the world around them.  If it were up to me this would be considered unlawful confinement, an it should be.

I think now is a great time for disability activists and their allies to take this issue on, and if you’re wondering where to start, here’s a suggestion.

To file a complaint, write to:

Canadian Transportation Agency
Accessible Transportation Directorate
Ottawa, Ontario
K1A 0N9

For further information call toll free to:
Voice: 1-800-883-1813 or 997-6828

TTY: 1-800-669-5575 or 953-9705

I also found information on the current responsibilities of airlines

Disability in the Media: Lady Gaga’s Disability Project

lady gaga using a wheelchair in her imagery
Lady Gaga's Paparazzi Video: Liberation or Exploitation?

I`ve recently become very interested in how the media is using disability as a hot topic, while still oppressing people with disabilities.  In doing some research on this topic I came across an excellent article on Lady Gaga’s Disability Project.

I`m all for people with disabilities expressing their sexuality, but Lady Gaga`s paparazzi video leaves me confused  Part of me is glad that people with disabilities can be seen as sexual beings in the media, but Lady Gaga does not need a chair.  If she really wanted to support us, wouldn`t she put a woman with a real disability on camera?  If she is exploiting the disability movement, what is she gaining from it that she wouldn’t gain from any other video?

Please send me your thoughts on this.

To read more about this issue from a disability studies perspective, check out: The Transcontinental Disability Choir: Disabililty Chic? (Temporary) Disability in Lady Gaga’s “Paparazzi” | Bitch Magazine.