36. Disability Awareness & Universal Design: Supporting All Students

This presentation will explore the barriers faced by people with disabilities in all aspects of life by discussing real life stories that offer examples of these barriers. Discussion and activities around etiquette and myths around a variety of disabilities will occur while we consider how Universal Design principles can promote accessibility to the broadest array of users. Learn about strategies that maximize usability in policy, program, physical and virtual environments. The inclusion of all learners, regardless of ability, is essential in training and teaching environments. The goal of this talk is for participants to be comfortable with disability and leave with the skills to begin implementing universal design and disability inclusion strategies in their work with an overview of universal design and practical ways to use accessibility practices in the creation of documents.

Objectives include: Understand barriers experienced by individuals with disabilities; List reasons why universal design supports all students; Describe the relationship between accessibility and universal design; Evaluate a document and make recommendations for how the document can be made more accessible; Produce a handout/document free of accessibility errors.

Lindsey Mullis, Kathy Sheppard-Jones, Christina Espinosa, Jason Jones, Patti Singleton