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Formatting Acronyms

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From: Morin, Gary (NIH/OD) [E]
Date: Mar 18, 2016 1:54PM

Happy Weekend!
I regularly teach a class on writing quality alternative text for documents, files, and web sites. Enhancing Reader Comprehension with Images and Graphics through Alternative Text for Better Accessibility (which you can see described at http://training.cit.nih.gov/class_details.aspx?cId=NIHCIT-AT173). The attendees are government employees and contractors. Naturally, a large part of our vocabulary is: ACRONYMS, some of which are spoken as words, others are spoken as letters (one organization was actually renamed so that it would not be spoken as a word but spelled out when spoken because of how it would have been pronounced).
As such, a frequent question is about formatting acronyms for smooth reading by ScreenReaders, whether in the body of a document/website or within the alt-text. Does anyone have an any prepared guidance or a reference that I can provide as a summary or handout? Any articles published on the web, rather than reinventing the wheel? I will probably provide them with a copy of Paul Bohman's Why Don't Screen Readers Always Read What's on the Screen? Part 1: Punctuation and Typographic Symbols. Deque, January 20, 2014. http://www.deque.com/blog/dont-screen-readers-read-whats-screen-part-1-punctuation-typographic-symbols/.
Any other suggested resources on how to format acronyms?
Thanks/Cheers
Gary

Gary M. Morin, Program Analyst
NIH Office of the Chief Information Officer

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what if the first question we asked was, "what is so unique about this situation that it justifies exclusion? instead of, "how much does it cost to make it accessible?