Practicing Accessibility

As part of an organizational commitment to provide and promote accessibility, all online and in-person Academy offerings will follow guidelines recommended by the Americans with Disabilities Act Network Initiative. In addition, the Academy has provided resources and guides for practicing accessibility as audiologists, as well as education regarding disability advocacy in both work and personal life. Contact the Accessibility Task Force with any suggested additions or comments.

Accessibility as a Human Right

ADA Americans with Disabilities Act - civil rights law that prohibits discrimination based on disability, acronym text concept with marker / shutterstock.com

Building on the historic 1990 American’s with Disabilities Act (ADA), the 2021 Executive Order on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA) for the Federal Workforce emphasized the importance of providing accommodations and accessible opportunities for people with disabilities in all organizational spaces (including outward-facing, internal, and electronic).

To meet this need, and based on years of galvanizing work done by Academy members, the Accessibility Committee (now Task Force), was created in 2022. The task force’s goals are to standardize, maintain, and improve the accessibility of all Academy offerings (in-person, online, and internal).

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Members of the Association of Audiologists with Hearing Loss and Student Academy of Audiology (SAA) Students with Hearing Loss (SWHL) Subcommittee advocated for years to improve the accessibility of Academy offerings for deaf and hard-of-hearing members.

Audrey Taylor Morris and Amanda Demas Schnayer (founders of the SAA SWHL Subcommittee) sought out a role to advocate for accessibility within the Academy. Members of the SAA SWHL Subcommittee consistently advocated for adequate standardization to Academy conference offerings.

The Accessibility Committee (now Task Force) was then created in 2022 to standardize and maintain accessibility for all offerings (in-person, online, internal). The Task Force is responsible for ensuring continued progress toward the Academy’s vision of accessibility. To accomplish this, the task force will recommend priorities and initiatives, as well as design and implement activities and resources with consideration of resource implications. The task force will collaborate with and serve as a resource to councils and committees to ensure accessibility (including visual, motor, and auditory accommodations) is considered and delivered in all Academy activities as well as devise a comprehensive communications strategy to educate members about our accessibility options.

Audiologists as a profession have a unique role to advocate for accessibility not only due to serving patients with disabilities, but also having colleagues with disabilities, and having an informed perspective regarding auditory accommodations. To strengthen audiology advocacy outside of direct patient care would improve the profession from within for patients, professionals, colleagues and the public. See the other pages of this website to gather ideas to implement accessibility advocacy in many situations both during and outside of work settings.

Starting Points for Considering Accessibility

Basic tenets of how to think about accessibility when creating something, working, or socializing.

Think about the 7 Principles of Universal Design.

Equitable Use

Do all people have equal or equitable access to the same information/design such that no one is excluded, and no one is segregated or stigmatized?

Example: Captioning can be turned on or off by the individual who is watching an educational video posted to an audiologist’s website.
Example: Assistive listening devices are available at conference registration, rather than requiring deaf or hard-of-hearing individuals to sit at the front of the room or provide their own.

Flexibility in Use

Simple and Intuitive Use

Perceptible Information

Tolerance for Error

Low Physical Effort

Size and Space for Approach and Use

Resources

Audiology Practice Online Behavior Social/Personal Interaction

Audiology Practice

- Caption call services, captioning apps, interpreter services, or CART
- Alternative testing methods may include:
  1. SRT and WRS using pictures such as WIPI if patient has poor speech intelligibility, or doesn’t speak.
  2. Written testing directions—push button for beep, ignore static noise, repeat words, loudness scale, etc.
  3. Use captioning app when talking as needed.
  4. Induction loop, remote mic, pocket talker to improve audibility during discussions if needed.
- Apps for the hard-of-hearing
- Speech-to-text apps
- Captioning apps
- Students with Hearing Loss
- Other resource options, credit to Tina Childress

Online Behavior

- Turn captions on.
- Confirm that participants are muted when not speaking.
- Confirm that participants turn on video when speaking so people can read lips.
- Have the speaker run the meeting and call on people to speak to avoid multiple people talking at once.
- Record and share meeting so if someone missed a part they can go back and review it later.
- Add captions to your videos—learn how.
- Choose a clear background if people will be signing, avoid blurring background which can blur gestures or obstruct body language
- Use features for Zoom, Teams, Webex, and Google meet—learn more.

Social/Personal Interaction

- Use clear signage (could possibly have station greeters at entrances).
- Provide an inclusive check-in process (i.e., consider table height, background noise, try to avoid background music around this area, offer online as well as phone options).
- Use a microphone at conferences.
- Clear paths to destinations.
- Face people when speaking.
- Rephrase or clarify statements for all in a group when in a complex listening environment.
- Provide electrical outlets near accessible seating areas to accommodate assistive devices.
- Make sure to repeat questions when asked by audience members.
- Have speakers state their name when speaking.

as Audiology Professionals and Advocates

Accessibility as a Human Right

Starting Points for Considering Accessibility

Think about the 7 Principles of Universal Design.

Resources

Audiology Practice

Online Behavior

Social/Personal Interaction

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