Steppingstones Project on Web Accessibility and Cognitive Disabilities in Education

Introduction

WebAIM, through its partnership with the National Center on Disability and Access to Education, has received funding to help web developers consider issues of cognitive disability in their designs. The Phase I Steppingstones of Technology Innovation grant, awarded by the US Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP), is a two-year development grant with a focus on producing a tool intended to help Web developers create web content that can more readily be used by those with cognitive and learning disabilities. If the tool has the expected impact, it could assist in improved outcomes for students with disabilities in education.

WebAIM will focus efforts on developing a set of evaluation rules and algorithms to be added to the popular WAVE evaluation tools (see http://dev.wave.webaim.org). The intent of the new functionality is to provide developers with feedback on how their web page designs might impact users with cognitive or learning disabilities. A Steppingstones Phase II proposal to test the broad impact of the tool use will be submitted at the end of this development phase. The project includes a partner, Adobe, and an active Advisory Board comprised of individuals with expertise in web accessibility, cognitive and learning disabilities, education technology, K-12 systems, and individuals and parents who have children with cognitive and learning disabilities.

The context for the problem

For many, using the internet is a ubiquitous and essential part of everyday life. For persons with cognitive or learning disabilities however, using the internet can be fraught with difficulties. Although many efforts have been aimed to improve and equalize accessibility of the web to those with disabilities, one group has been largely omitted. These are individuals who have cognitive and or learning disabilities¹.

This group is large and diverse. For example it includes those with developmental disabilities such as Down's syndrome, those with traumatic brain injury, specified and unspecified learning disabilities, attention deficit disorders, some with aphasia, and some conditions along the autism spectrum. Taken together, they represent the largest group of individuals with disabilities in the United States². There are 4 times more individuals with cognitive and learning disabilities than there are individuals who are blind³.

Unlike making recommendations to improve accessibility for those with sensory disabilities, the divergence of this group makes it difficult to provide those in the field with common solutions⁴. Individuals with cognitive and learning disabilities have vast differences in their abilities to process visual information, read and write, problem-solve, execute complex tasks, persist, or access short or long term memory⁵. Moreover, some individuals struggle with only one cognitive task whereas others may struggle with them all. An added complication in making recommendations to the field is that what may be good design for one individual with a cognitive disability is a barrier for another (e.g., pairing images with text may aid those with poor reading skills and impair those with distractibility problems).

In the U.S., there appear to be only a handful of researchers who have studied the impact of today's web pages on individuals with cognitive disabilities⁶. Because there is so little empirically-based evidence, there are no definitive guidelines that a designer can look to for help. For example, WCAG 2.0 in its current form does not address the needs of users with cognitive or learning disabilities. Although there is little empirical evidence to guide web developers, there is ample expert opinion regarding the best ways to provide access⁷. With that opinion, the field appears to be cautiously moving forward. For example, the U.S. Access Board has requested that the TEITAC (Telecommunication and Electronic Information Technical Advisory Committee) include issues of cognitive and learning disability as they refresh the Section 508 standards⁸. Although expert opinion is an excellent place to begin, research must follow to deliver empirically-based knowledge into the field.

How this problem is felt in our schools

In U.S. education, the numbers of students with cognitive or learning disabilities are significant. They represent, by far, the largest group of individuals with disabilities in our nation's schools. It is estimated that 3.5 million students fall into this category. National estimates indicate that approximately 7.5% of the K-12 school population will have a cognitive or learning disability⁹. Over the last few years, there have been increases in the numbers of students with disabilities who are successfully included in the general classroom for at least 80% of their day. The largest increase, however, has been with those students who have specific learning disabilities. Now, 40 percent of students with specific learning disabilities spend at least 80% of their day in the general classroom¹⁰.

From 1994 to 2002 the percentage of public schools with Internet access had jumped from 35% to 99%¹¹. With more than 70% of public school parents in favor of computer technology usage¹², the internet has become part of the fabric of our education environments. Teachers also report that they place increased value on the web for instruction. In a National Center for Educational Statistics Issues Brief¹³, teachers indicated that after email, the web was the next most "essential" tool to teaching. Students also report that they have increased their use of the internet for school purposes. While only 24% reported having used the library for their last assignment, over 70% reported that they had used the internet for that same assignment ¹⁴. Students report that the web is the second-most important tool they use for assignments and participation in their coursework; this was second only to email¹⁵. They also spend the longest amounts of time on the internet when they visit instructional web sites¹⁶.

Considering that the use of the internet has exploded in today's education¹⁷, and that students with cognitive and learning disabilities are included with their peers and in the general curriculum, issues of accessing and using web content must be addressed side-by-side with the important trends of inclusion. To learn with their peers, these students must be given the opportunity to access and use web-based content on a regular basis. However, many of these students experience predictable difficulties with the cognitive load of a web page (e.g., the complexity in the layout, content, and presentation of the web page) that interferes with their ability to use the information or perform necessary tasks¹⁸. When this happens, students risk falling further behind their peers and the general curriculum.

Individuals who have disabilities that impact visual processing, distractibility, memory, speed, persistence, and other cognitive processes could benefit from web content that is designed with cognitive issues in mind. When these students use web-based curricula, assignments, and tests, such content would then be more accessible to them. It may also be more instructionally sound and generally usable by all students, regardless of disability ¹⁹

To benefit from web instruction, changes are required. There needs to be investigation of how to design web pages to reduce cognitive demands and, thus, increase access and comprehension for students with cognitive and learning disabilities. Once this happens, tools need to be made available so that those who create web-based instruction can improve the experiences and outcomes for these students.

Project focus to help lessen the problem

WebAIM staff will capitalize on prior successes produced by accessibility evaluation tools as a way to lessen the current problem. Web developers are aware of the positive impact that evaluation tools had in early accessibility efforts. These tools went a long way to help the field understand the relationships between markup and accessibility. For example, existing evaluation tools help web developers understand the importance of adding alternative text for persons with blindness. Extending the functionality of evaluation tools to include issues of cognitive processing and execution could have similar positive effects.

WebAIM will review both expert opinion and existing research to identify a list of items that impact the accessibility of web content for people with cognitive and learning disabilities. Using experts in the field this list will then be prioritized in order of the influence they have on the user. We will then conduct research to determine the actual impact these items have on students with cognitive and learning disabilities. After determining which items have the greatest impact, WebAIM will build a tool to evaluate as many of these items as possible. This tool will then be tested to determine if it is useful in helping developers create more accessible web content.

At the end of this 2-year development period, we will be ready for large-scale field tests of the effectiveness of WAVE to improve educational results for children with disabilities. At WebAIM we are excited to begin this new work. We are pleased to have the industry support and expertise of Adobe as well as the vast knowledge of our Advisory Board. Stay tuned in the coming months as we will rollout project information for comment and feedback on a regular basis.

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