[nabs-l] Handwritten pages, accessibility, and confidentiality

Sat Oct 10 00:30:55 UTC 2015

Hello Kaiti,

I do not know of any computer applications that convert hand written
documents into a more accessible format. Therefore, I believe a reader of
some kind would be the most beneficial means of being able to gain access to
this printed information.

If you are concerned about the reader keeping a copy of the song lyrics,
perhaps you could meet with them in person as they are converting the lyrics
into something that may be more accessible for you. This way you can hand
them the lyrics when working with the reader, and then ask to receive them
back when you are done working with the reader. This would ensure that the
reader does not retain a copy of the lyrics.

Additionally, is there any way to break down the song into smaller chunks
when working with this individual? Perhaps working on the whole song in one
session may be too much when working with this person, but perhaps you could
work on the song line by line or verse by verse depending on what might work
best for the situation. If you were to do the song line by line, or perhaps
two lines at a time, you could potentially work on different arrangements
for that section of the song, and perhaps he might want to change some of
the lyrics as you go along depending on how they sound to him. When working
on a new line of the song, you could review what you have done with the song
up to that point before beginning on the new line.

I have absolutely no idea if this would work for your situation, but it was
something that came to mind as I was reading through your email. I hope you
are able to find the best solution to this situation.

Warm regards,
Elizabeth

-----Original Message-----
From: nabs-l [mailto:nabs-l-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Kaiti Shelton
via nabs-l
Sent: Friday, October 09, 2015 6:58 PM
To: social-sciences-list <social-sciences-list at nfbnet.org>
Cc: Kaiti Shelton <crazy4clarinet104 at gmail.com>; National Association of
Blind Students mailing list <nabs-l at nfbnet.org>
Subject: [nabs-l] Handwritten pages, accessibility, and confidentiality

Hi all,

I previously posted about this issue on the human services list but have not
gotten any suggestions for how to handle this challenge that suit my needs.
I got similar answers from a group of blind music therapists, but as both
groups tend to be comprised of older folks I'm hoping I might get some more
satisfactory answers here from people who know more about technology or why
I might not want a reader other than just being a stubborn whippersnapper.

I am a music therapy student and for my practicum this semester I am working
one-on-one with a young man who has Down Syndrome.  We have developed a
great therapeutic relationship over the past few weeks, and the theoretical
models I've used have worked wonderfully.
Reciprocity is one of the core values of the format, which is great because
it allows for him and I to help each other, and for him to take some of the
responsibility and gain self-affirmation and success from that.
(Music-centered, client-centered, and resource-oriented music therapy are
the principles I'm using in case anyone is interested).

In one of our sessions this week the client brought in a spiral notebook
with some handwritten song lyrics that he had composed himself.  It was
clear that he was seeking musical support and wanted me to work with him to
shape the songs into musical works.  My role in this case would be to help
him by forming the melodic material and the chord progressions for the
harmonic structure, but that was extremely difficult for me to do without
access to his lyrics.  I think he did feel like he got something out of it
because he did a bit of directing, but it would be nice to really shape the
song into something unique (he identified that he wanted a pop sound and
chose to sing it along to the harmonic structure of "Fight Song," with my
supervisor and I playing in addition to the recording of Fight Song to back
him up).

In the following session the client agreed to let my supervisor make coppies
of the notebook pages, and she took pictures of them using a scanner app on
her phone and sent them to me as image PDFs.  OCR won't work on these since
they're handwritten, so I'm still somewhat stuck in accessibility.  The real
catch comes in how to make them accessible since I am not quite sure what
the terms of the informed consent are (the degree coordinators handle that
as this is still fairly early in my practicum sequence) and I also don't
know what I can do on my end to be ethical.  I don't know if going through
disability services or robo braille is an option because I can't guarantee
that the files are destroyed once I get my coppies of them.  My professor
suggested that we wave the usual requirements of not sharing more than
superficial information between clinical teams and have a classmate read the
lyrics to me so I can write them down, since I need to get them somehow.
However, I think this is something I need to figure out how to handle on my
own because I may very well have this situation crop up in the professional
world and may not be able to run to classmates or colleagues busy with their
own work to do that.  Additionally, call me stubborn, but I'm the type of
person that avoids readers at all costs because I want to be independent and
not bother other people with my workload, especially peers.

That aside, when I emailed this to the human services list I received one
response in which the clinician lectured me on how I should have the client
read his lyrics to me so I can write them down in an accessible format, and
I can use it as a way to educate him on how I adapt, how self-disclosure can
be beneficial for the therapeutic relationship, etc.  I am well aware of
these facts and have strived to self-disclose my blindness in ways that are
beneficial to my client.
We talked about it in the first session I had with him and he receives
reminders of why he needs to tell me what he's pointing to or say what he
wants as needed.  He has even read lyrics of songs I've printed out for us
to work on for me a few times so I can find where he is looking on the page
and guide him to the right spot.  He has heard voiceover and understands
what it does for my phone on a basic level, as well as seen my cane and
notetaker before.  I think considering his level of cognitive functioning
that he understands it as well as he can and with reminders that I've been
giving him will understand it possibly a little more as we continue working
together.  On another note, I'm not willing to sacrifice valuable session
time which could be used to address our goals for him to read to me.  This
is because although give and take is very important in our relationship, I
think that would be overdoing it.  It takes him longer to process and read
things out loud, and sometimes I have to clarify what he says because his
speech isn't always clear.  I think we'd at least sacrifice the majority of
a session if not more with just getting the information into my computer and
checking that it is correct, and that is not something I'm willing to do-to
sacrifice a client's treatment for my own accommodations.  That's a
principle I think I would stick to in the professional world, so I'm really
looking for something that will allow me to independently and effectively
get accessible versions of his song lyrics while maintaining professional
and ethical standards of practice regarding confidentiality.

Any suggestions or methods any of you have used for navigating these issues
would be appreciated.  With fall break my next session isn't until
Wednesday, but I'd like to have time to look over the lyrics to see how I
can best be of support.
--
Kaiti Shelton
University of Dayton-Music Therapy
President, Ohio Association of Blind Students 2013-Present Secretary, The
National Federation of the Blind Performing Arts Division 2015-2016

"You can live the life you want; blindness is not what holds you back!"

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