[blindkid] Online Accessibility in College

[Shellie Kalinsky]

My daughter does talk with the disabilities office and has a memorandum of accommodations that includes a reader and a scribe however the reality is that they don't have the trained readers ready for her and she wants to attend college now, not wait a year while they train the 2 readers they have for tests and assessments.  She uses a combination of screen readers and technology but sometimes the material is not coded properly so the software can't read it correctly (for example the math problems will say "symbol" instead of "equals" and other mistakes like that).  We have consulted with a private technology company because we thought the problem was her computer software, but we found out that the problem is the actual coding of documents by publishing companies and that in some situations human readers will still be necessary.   Which leads us back to the original question of where to find people to hire.  We know that eventually her disabilities office will have the trained readers available but we are filling a gap in services right now.  There is only one other student with a visual disability on her campus so the disabilities office is learning how to provide appropriate accommodations from my daughter.   It's good to know my daughter is helping them make positive changes for future students but we also need to make sure her needs are being met now.   

Sent from my iPad 

> On Feb 22, 2015, at 8:33 AM, EMMOL--- via blindkid <blindkid at nfbnet.org> wrote:
> 
> Shellie, 
> I suggest that your daughter speak with the Disabilities Office at her  
> school.
> They will be in touch with professors if materials are not accessible. She  
> should of course speak with the professors to make them aware, but  the 
> Disabilities Office will assist with the accessibility  piece.
> 
> I am wondering what screen reader she uses. My son is a senior in college.  
> His school uses Blackboard, as well, but he uses Jaws.
> 
> My daughter works in the Disabilities Office at another University and  
> finds that Kurzweil has difficulty reading materials that professors have photo 
> copied, scanned and then upload. Also if they've designed a worksheet 
> using Word  it isn't necessarily screen reader accessible. They may not realize 
> this or  understand.
> 
> All materials must be accessible, so I suggest she go back to the  
> Disabilities Office. 
> Eileen Molloy
> 
> 
> Date: Sat, 21 Feb 2015 20:30:22 +0000 (UTC)
> From: Shellie Kalinsky  <shellie.kalinsky at yahoo.com>
> To: "Blind Kid Mailing List (for parents  of blind children)"
> <blindkid at nfbnet.org>
> Subject:  [blindkid] where to hire readers for college level  students?
> Message-ID:
> <1264816763.1241008.1424550622508.JavaMail.yahoo at mail.yahoo.com>
> Content-Type:  text/plain; charset=UTF-8
> 
> Hi -? 
> 
> My daughter is a college freshman  and sometimes the material she has to 
> read for class is online and her read  aloud software doesn't always read the 
> material properly.? So we would like to  hire someone to read the material 
> to her.? Have any of you hired a reader  before?? Where did you find your 
> readers?? Any suggestions on where my daughter  and I should look for someone? 
> 
> Thanks in advance for your advice on  this. 
> Shellie Kalinsky 
> 
> 
> 
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