Designing Web Content for People with Learning Disabilities

Author: Lisa Seeman
Editor: William Loughborough, Jael Kurtz
Contributors
This document is a first working draft only. It has been created to test ideas and promote discussion. If you have any comments or would like to participate in this effort email us or join the LD Web guidelines list.

About Learning Disabilities

Learning disabilities affect a wide variety of Memory, Perception, Problem-solving, and Conceptualizing skills.

Some learning impairments are severe and greatly effect a person's ability range. Some examples of severe learning impairments - learning difficulty, cerebral palsy, autism or traumatic brain injury. Disabilities may develop with the aging process.

Other impairments are localized. Some types of functions are impaired but other mental functions are at normal or even above normal levels. In other words, people with learning disabilities can be of average or above average intelligence.

Developmental disabilities are defined as severe when they substantially affect and limit three or more areas, such as: self-care, receptive and expressive language, learning, mobility, self-direction, capacity for independent living, and economic self-sufficiency. (source: AHRC 2002)

There are nearly four million Americans with developmental disabilities. (Source: US Administration on Developmental Disabilities) Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDD) include Asperger Syndrome, Rett Syndrome, Williams Syndrome, and autistic disorders. They affect, to differing degrees, an individual's ability to communicate, understand language, play with and relate to others. Individuals with PDD vary widely in their intelligence and abilities.

An individual is considered to have a non-specific learning difficulty if his/her IQ test result is below 70, and he/she has significant limitations in two or more adaptive areas, such as communication skills, home living ability, social skills, self-direction, functional academics. (Source: AAMR, 1992).

There are an estimated 6.8 million people with non-specific learning disability in the United States alone. (Source: Batshaw, 1997). Non-specific learning difficulty affects 100 times as many people as blindness. (Source: AAHR 1994)

Why Accommodate People with Learning Disabilities?

Some Web authors prefer not to design for people with learning disabilities. Typical arguments include: 1) People with learning disabilities are not within a site's target audience 2) Designing for people with learning disabilities presents an undue burden on the content provider.

The first argument, that Web authors can guarantee the abilities of their target audience, particularly in this case, is always weak. One cannot know who has disabilities, and they are often developed as we age.

More importantly, learning disabilities do not imply an overall low intelligence. Technical or educational sites, whose target audiences are very intelligent, should not assume that the learning disabled are not part of their target audience.

The argument of undue burden is perhaps a stronger case. The argument is that to design for people with learning disabilities is not practical - it is either too difficult or too expensive. However, any accessibility technique can seem difficult until one understands them. The same holds true for comprehension-oriented techniques. With practice and the will to include as many people as possible, accessibility for the learning disabled should not be too difficult.

Basically, we need to design sites to include as many people as possible so that we have a fairer world. We need accessibility to bridge differences and integrate more people into society. If someone who could understand Web content is unable to because of the design choices of the Web author, then that Web content is not as accessible as it could be - even if it can be used by all types of physically disabled users.

A user example

Meet Alice

Alice is 30 years old and dyslexic. She has above average intelligence but has a reading age of 8 years old. Her interests are law and social science. However, as remembering dates and names was a problem for Alice, she was unable to pass law exams and studied programming instead. Alice now has a programming degree and is working as a programmer.

Alice can not visualize words so she reads phonetically. She needs to put together each sound to build the word for each word that she reads. This makes reading slow and strenuous. Because reading is not automatic, Alice first has to read the words and then stop and understand them. The shorter the sentence, the easier and quicker the process.

Because reading is slow for Alice, she will try to avoid it. She often jumps over long paragraphs and misses pieces of information.

Alice also has impaired auditory memory and discrimination skills, so listening to long sentences while using a screen reader is also difficult. She sometimes uses a speech browser, but uses it at normal speech speed or slightly slower, making it a far less effective browsing tool than it is for visually impaired users.

When inputting information Alice uses spell checking. However, she is unable to differentiate between homonyms and synonyms and often enters incorrect information as a result.

Guidelines and What to do

Resources

http://www.ubaccess.com/artsimulator.html: Simulator for learning disabilities
http://www.ubaccess.com/rdf.html : RDF schema for accessibility
http://80.60.189.118/wwaac/ The WAAC: symbolic language representation for web content
http://www.dyslexia-parent.com/mag35.html: Dyslexia Online Magazine

Thanks to: John Bradford

References

AHRC New York at http://www.ahrcnyc.org/ DSM-IV (American Psychiatric Association, 1994),

AHRC New York City http://www.ahrcnyc.org/index.htm FAQ's Sheet (2002)

American Association on Mental Retardation. (1992).

Mental Retardation: Definition, Classification, and Systems of Supports, 9th Edition. Washington, DC. Alexander, D. (1998).

Prevention of Mental Retardation: Four Decades of Research.

Mental Retardation and Developmental Disabilities Research Reviews. 4: 50-58 Batshaw, M. (1997).

The Arc. (1982). The Prevalence of Mental Retardation.

US Administration on Developmental Disabilities, see http://www.acf.dhhs.gov/programs/add/Factsheet.htm, -January 25, 2002 http://www.mang.canterbury.ac.nz/courseinfo/AcademicWriting/Flesch.htm