speaker-1: The accessibility breakdown by inclusion impact accessibility.
speaker-0: Accessibility. Hey, welcome to the Accessibility Breakdown. I am Mark, and this is.
speaker-1: Justin.
speaker-0: You you always like a just ⁓ a slight delay, Justin. Every week we pay tribute to those that stand out to us as leading by accessibility by picking three topics that strike us in some way. This week we're gonna talk about a simple way to make instructions more accessible. This is an article by Josh Crawford. ⁓ again, one of those subjects that we've we've probably come around to, but we I I really felt this was a a good ⁓ Reminder and some interesting things that Josh talked about. We're also going to talk about increasing accessibility, mindfulness-based practices for autistic folks. And this is written by Brit. You gotta help me with his last name. Alb Albanese. Albanese? Thank you. Or you're just much better at that than Ibanese. Albanese, Britt Albanese. And ⁓ As we know, this is, or as you may or may not know, this is Autism Awareness Month. So this article is really timely for that. ⁓ and it also has some personal connections, ⁓ particularly for Justin, but ⁓ I think for all of us. ⁓ so we're excited to do that one. And then the other thing we're gonna talk about today is there's a really interesting story out of my hometown, hometown, home state, New Hampshire. ⁓ And we're going to be ⁓ talking about this young ⁓ student, ⁓ Ben, that ⁓ who's deaf felt isolated at school and the incredible sort of community story that ⁓ unfolds ⁓ from there. So we'll talk about that. we'll give you more details on that when we get to it. ⁓ so Justin, let's start with a simple way to make instructions more accessible.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So this was an interesting article. I mean, this comes up a lot, but this is one of those articles that's very simple to understand, very easy to kind of get into. ⁓ and the number of times that I have to reference color alone ⁓ being an issue or ⁓ position like people referencing like specific positions is it comes up all the time. Time. I almost got ready to say a potty word there. but yeah, it comes up all the time. And ⁓ and so having just a simple set of instructions to remind everyone is it's needed. ⁓ even in this day and age. We've got AI, we've got all these things that are helping us out. And ⁓ but just some simple instructions ⁓ on like not relying on site ⁓ alone. or if you do rely on site, like saying like Hey, ⁓ you know, don't, you know, click the button to the left or, you know, the button is available at the top, you know, in the top right corner. Like people who are unsighted or people maybe that are low vision that have changed the shape of their screen in some way, maybe they're zooming in or something. Right. Those types of waypoints, those type of directional advice isn't going to be as useful for them as it is for someone who is, you know, fully sighted. can kind of scan the page. So
speaker-0: Yeah, you know, articles like this for me, Justin, one of the reasons why I like them is because they they are like you kind of brought up the point that it's like, I don't know how you stated it, but that it's not this isn't like a big complicated issue. It's not a new, like trenchant AI thing. This is goes back to sort of the basics for accessibility. And I think sometimes one, it's a very human issue, right? And I and I think it becomes ⁓ difficult. It's a good example of how it can be difficult for anything. That is automated, AI or whatever, to parse something ⁓ well enough to be like this instruction is not good because of, you know, this is over to you're saying this is over to the right, but but it could be reordered, or somebody with a screen reader is not going to understand because screen readers present the page linearly, where you may be you're viewing like this to this two-dimensional view of the page. Directions like write make sense in that context, but when you're listening or experiencing a linear version of the page, that doesn't make sense, right? And so I think it becomes really difficult to ⁓ it's very human, right? For automation to do it. And the other thing that I really like about this is me being on the phone with people who like I think when you're on the phone with somebody, right, when you're doing your job just Justin, because you're so technical, you're often talking to other people that are. Right. That would be experience back in TPGI, right? You're surrounded, you're in this in this group of technical folks. Whereas I'm oftentimes I may be in that kind of conversation, but I'm I'm oftentimes in a group of people who may not have known what accessibility was, or maybe they kind of understand a screen reader, but not really or didn't know what one was a little while ago. And to have these very understandable examples, and I think this is understandable. So I go like, ⁓ you know, an image doesn't describe You know, a screen reader can't describe an image, so you need alt text. Like that's something a lay person can understand. And then lots of times I'll go into form fields. Like you may have a bunch of, you know, you know that you have to put your first name in this form because like first name is right next to the form field and last name is right next to the form field and so on. But it doesn't mean it reads it out to the screen reader in that order. So imagine it said first name, last name, address, form field, form field, form field. You wouldn't know what to do. So there's a couple of these examples. And I think this is another one. And I don't use this one, but maybe I'm gonna start. But this, and we all deal with directions of one type or another every day. So this idea that yes, in some environments, click the button on the right makes sense. In other environments, or I shouldn't even say in environments, but in in ⁓ the environments that other that people need to navigate, it may not make sense. So if you're the environment you're trying to navigate as one of a screen reader, that may not make sense. So I really appreciated Josh's ⁓ explanation of this. So read the article if you haven't. And I really appreciate the fact that it does bring the importance of accessibility kind of to the surface where it's understandable by a lot of lot of folks. I don't know. That was mine.
speaker-1: No, it is. It is. And it's it's interesting, like as you were kind of talking, like one of the the analogy. I'm a big analogy person. And it's almost every email client these days has ⁓ the way to remind you ⁓ to actually attach an attachment to a file. If you say like, hey, you know, in this file below, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you go to send it and you click send and it's like, hey, you mentioned an attachment. Did you forget to because no one likes having to send that second email?
speaker-0: Saved my life quite a few times. Thank you very much.
speaker-1: Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be cool if you were like if you're working on a document or you're working particularly like in a PowerPoint presentation or something like that, and you had some way of being able to see like, like, hey, you know, refer to all the red items. And, you know, if you're colorblind, you may not be able to see the red items. That's why we have like contrast issues and color alone as a ⁓ a success criteria. And wouldn't it be cool if like you had something similar to the attachment reminder? that said like, hey, you've got phrasing in here or you you are using color alone or position in order to indicate where something is on the screen. I mean it's just a it's an accessibility check, but it kind of falls in that kind of similar vein.
speaker-0: Yep. Yeah, this is a really good point. Like you could alert that. You could say you're using directional or positioning. You know, are you sure that that's going to be perceivable by everyone? And then the the problem with that too is that like if you're a lay person and you're trying to get accessibility right and then all of a sudden you get that level of feedback, you may not get it. Right. You may be like, What I don't what do you mean? You know, I don't understand. But that's where Josh's article I think comes in. to play is that, you know, if if part of that person's education was was what Josh put together here and the kind of checklist that he ⁓ brings forward, then all of a sudden like, ⁓ okay, that kind of alert would be very, very useful. you know, followed up by by the information in this article. So I agree. And we should just cover a little bit like what what Josh Carford says in in this article is essentially like you need to use not non-positioning language. So if there's a button to be pressed, and I'm gonna forget the ⁓ exact example that he he did, but it needs to say like press the submit button versus press the button on the right, right? So labeling it, and we know labeling and ⁓ is is a big in in sort of all sorts of different contexts is a big deal when it comes to accessibility, but but having that button have a name, have that label. And being able to refer to that versus its position on the page is essentially in a nutshell the the ⁓ way to think about it. Yeah. We good? We good. All right. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate the article. All right. So the next one here that we wanted to talk about was this article by ⁓ I'm gonna say the first name, you say the last name, Britt. Thank you. And ⁓ it's increasing accessibility ⁓ increasing accessibility, colon, mindfulness-based practices for
speaker-1: ⁓ praise.
speaker-0: all autistic folks. And ⁓ like I said at the top, we're excited to have this article to talk about because it is autism awareness month. ⁓ and ⁓ which is an important month because I think it's and we'll talk a little bit about it today, but just the autism awareness means a lot of different things to me. And I'm sure it means even more to you, Justin. ⁓ But essentially This was this was a little bit ⁓ close to me too because I'm a big ⁓ big mindfulness person is what I was about to say. I practice mindfulness like a lot of other ⁓ like a lot of other folks. And ⁓ what people don't realize about n mindfulness, I think, is that it's it can be if I'm using the right word here, but it can alm you have to approach it with caution, right? It can sort of be dangerous and destruction dis destructive. And we're gonna talk a little bit about ⁓ some ⁓ mental health things here as well, or at least at least I am. So just a a fair warning, if that's a trigger for you, you might want to ⁓ fast forward a little bit here. But ⁓ for people with mental health issues, diving into mindfulness can be a little bit difficult and dangerous because all of a sudden you're quietly dealing with some ⁓ difficult thoughts and it does not necessarily mindfulness isn't magic. Right, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna deal with those thoughts well. so in this article with autism, they s sort of talk about how difficult could it could be for a autistic person to fold inward like that. And I'm this is my my words here. And the really interesting thing, and you have some experience with this, Justin. So I'm gonna I'm gonna be quiet and let you talk about it. But the really interesting thing is is that the You don't believe me that I'm gonna be quiet in a minute. You're like, sure you are. We need a signal where you just tell me to shut up and let you talk. ⁓ but anyways, the ⁓ that that and I'm I'm playing with a bottle. This is appropriate because I'm playing with a little fidget thing that I have sitting on my desk. I have ⁓ several of them over here, but one of the things they said is that sometimes to anchor again my words, but to anchor that person with autism. Sometimes they need some sort of external stimuli and that may be a fidget toy to kind of ⁓ in in my mind it was to sort of ground them in the presence a little bit in a different way, other than just relying on their mind to hold them in the present in the present moment, which is what ⁓ a mindfulness is or one type of mindfulness is about, is is really holding your mind in the present moment. So ⁓ so it's just very interesting. I'd never thought about that. And I think that we learn a lot from the different ways people think. And this really struck me as interesting and and and I started to think of curb cutout. Like how does how can I learn from this alternative mind that's not that's not the same as mine. ⁓ but you had I'm gonna flip it over to you, Justin, for for real disease this time, because ⁓ you have some specific experience with this.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. ⁓ for the ⁓ for those that don't know me personally, like I have a my oldest son is on the spectrum. He's on HD, which is autism plus ⁓ attention hyperactivity de ADHD. All the he has all of the things. but like when he was in therapy, they used they used this this method of kind of ⁓ external stimuli in order really to kind of kind of quiet some of the other parts of his brain and allow them to have a conversation. And I remember when he first started going, it was, it was weird for me. So his big thing, he's always a big been a big screens kid, but one of the things that he's really gotten into over the past couple of years is composing. ⁓ And so he will spend a lot of time on his phone composing music and like note by note. ⁓ not in garage band or anything like that. He uses like this little MIDI synthesizer. But that's his fidget. That's his way to kind of quiet ⁓ like his brain to focus in on something. And so it was weird to me when he would go into his his sessions and they'd be like, no, no, it's okay. I can bring my phone. It's I'm I'm supposed to. And I didn't understand it until it was explained to me what they were using it for. And so he would go in and he would work on a song. ⁓ while his therapist would ask him questions and stuff like that. And so you know sometimes she kind of has to, you know, ask multiple times, but it helps it gave them a much more productive session, a much more way for him to be mindful of the moment and to to talk about some of the things that he needed to talk about in those sessions. So that was one way that helped him. And but as that article that we read or that we're publishing from ⁓ Albanese ⁓ they are ⁓ it may you know, this may not work for everyone. and but you know, we had some success with it. It was really cool. And so it was kind of I didn't know that that was I thought that was just ⁓ kind of a technique that his therapist had stumbled upon or what I didn't realize that was like a real thing. ⁓ so that was cool to read. So
speaker-0: So this is where the curb cutout effect I think comes in, right? Meaning that your your experience with your son, the this article exposes this notion that sometimes what seems to be a distraction is actually a tool to focus. And it seems like in the case of people who who are autistic, that I'm sure not in every case, but that in some of these cases, that's that's the method. And I'll say a couple things about that. One, so I'm on the opposite end of the autistic autistic spectrum. In in some models, ⁓ autism is on one end of the spectrum. You have sort of a normative middle, and then dyslexia is on the other end. And the reason why it's laid out that way is because dyslexia can be simply defined is if if you're looking at that trouble it causes, right, versus the ⁓ beneficial ways it helps. ⁓ it's it's difficulty sort of getting into the details, right? So people with dyslexia tend to be pretty good with storytelling, but they're very bad at spelling. So it's that detail. Big picture, great detail. And this is a simplistic one aspect here. So don't get too but whereas with autism, Oftentimes you have the opposite occur where, you know, you've got the people with autism who hear a song and then can play it no for no, right? Because they're they're sharp in those details. But ⁓ maybe they struggle socially because they're harder navigating that big picture, right? And again, I'm this is this is me editorializing. So ⁓ if you've got different experiences, don't don't beat me up here. ⁓ but I also so I have dyslexia and I have ⁓ ADD. And one of the things I often do is I listen to a podcast when I'm trying to stay focused on a simpler task, one that's sort of more repetitive, because it keeps me focused. And ⁓ I had and because of this experience, I had an employee who was on the autistic spectrum. And they were ⁓ worried one day because I had made a comment that exposed the fact that they weren't looking at the camera and that they were doing something. They were fidgeting below them and that what they were doing is doodling. And they went into a panic because of past experiences with managers who had accused them of not paying attention in a similar situation. And they were like, ⁓ I ⁓ it'll never happen again, blah, blah, blah. And I Hold up. What were you doing? And they said, I was doodling. And I said, that's what I thought you were doing. And I said, and I assumed you were doing it to hold your attention on the conversation. And they said, that's exactly what I was doing. They were all the person was almost surprised. and then we had a great conversation about it. It ended up being a great moment and a great opportunity to understand each other and all that kind of thing. But ⁓ so the question is, is like, you know, what other ways is that to similar experience helpful? all sorts of people. It val I value it as somebody on the opposite end end of that spectrum. ⁓ and then also just to hold in our heads this idea that people people's brains work differently and we can't assume. We can't assume our experience is the same as somebody else's experience. And what I wanted to do, J Justin, because you know, we're digital accessibility people and I think people listening to this podcast might be like, okay, what does this have to do with digital accessibility? And the One of the things that struck me, right? We pick out things that that strike us. One of the things that struck me is why it is important that we keep focusing on how on on how we do create rules around ⁓ around ⁓ what what's the word I'm looking for? The neur well, neurodivergent. neurodivergence in terms of the ⁓ you know, like the wick it's one of the areas in digital accessibility I think is the hardest that we've done have done probably
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: have not gotten as far down the road. Like if if we're, you know, for people who are blind, for people who are deaf, it's a little ⁓ easier to understand how to accommodate, but we've struggled ⁓ trying to figure out how to accommodate for people who are neurodivergent. And it just highlights the things that we do have like distractions on the site. And because somebody fidgets to stay focused doesn't mean that the flashing lights in the ad off to the site are gonna help, right? Those are probably going to be a distraction or or the fact that we need to write, ⁓ you know, create sites that are consistent from page to page to page because of this difficulty ⁓ of focusing. So to me, it just sort of highlighted the importance, one, that we keep exploring how to do this, and two, the ⁓ things that we do have in place are very, very important, I think, or the things we do understand right now are very, very
speaker-1: Yeah, exactly.
speaker-0: And I think we could go on. I could go on. I've got more stories, but we're gonna in the interest of time, let's let's move I know, J Justin's like, I'm the one with the k kid who's got autism.
speaker-1: You were the storyteller. So
speaker-0: That's right. I'm the ⁓ the story. That's right. Respect my ⁓ my dyslexia. No, I'm just kidding. ⁓ okay, so I love this next story. I absolutely love it. And I love it to the point where I don't know what to do with it, right? Because I want to do something with it. And ⁓ it is so your comment to me before we got on and heated up the mics. was you're when I g 'cause I gave this to you to read and you're like, ⁓ that's just dust in my eye, right? It is that kind of story where it feels so good and it gives you so much faith.
speaker-1: Yep. This is one of those, like for anyone that watches like CBS Sunday morning, ⁓ like this is one of those like feel good kind of like stories that you're like, you know, by the end it's narrated in a very calm, soothing voice.
speaker-0: Yeah, and in in listen, this is not adults here. This is children being better leaders, being being naturally just gravitating towards what's right in a way that I think as we get older our adults can can struggle with. So I'm not gonna delay any further. So this comes out of my home state. New Hampshire. ⁓ and this is a story, ⁓ it was covered by a bunch of people. We'll probably link you out to the CBS News article on it. ⁓ and it was it's ⁓ from Camp Campton, New Hampshire, so Campton Elementary School. And this ⁓ young man named Ben, and I just wrote Ben down, so we probably should ⁓ Ben O'Reilly. O'Reilly's his last name. Who is who's deaf and he's mainstreamed, which means he's put into the education system with ⁓ other students. So ⁓ in this small New Hampshire town, he's the only deaf student, and he has this wonderful aid aide, Cheryl. I can't I can't do the last name. U L I C N Y. This is my thing. No last name mark. and ⁓ ⁓ Ben started to ⁓ kind of express, as you would expect, like feelings of isolation. It's you know, it's difficult. ⁓ There's no way around it, right? Like if you're the only deaf student in a s in a school full of hearing people, there's gonna be challenges. And I think that ⁓ and this is me reading into this, but I think that there's a lot of credit given to Cheryl here for really ⁓ working with Ben and and being a great advocate and and and friend and everything. But the story here is that unprompted, unprompted, Ben's classmates started to learn sign language and started to sign with Ben. And they started in when you ⁓ when you ⁓ like I've looked at some of the interviews online that are that the people recorded with these kids and they're like well If you want to play with Ben, you need to know how to talk to Ben. And we wanted to play with Ben. He's, you know, like, and I'm like I'm make I'm again I'm I'm not this is not for Baitum, but they're saying things like Ben was our friend and we wanted to play with him. And so we learned sign language. Like like just as a as a matter of fact as it could be, and it's so simple. It is so simple. But ⁓ Ben was in an environment where he was struggling. The people in that vi environment. were welcoming and perceived the barrier that Ben had and was perceiving and worked with Ben to close it.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Like
speaker-1: Kids kids are amazing. And yeah. ⁓ I don't know. I kids are one of the like like I feel like we're the ones that kind of screw up kids long term by projecting our own kind of things onto them. But kids themselves, like like you put like two kids in a room, like they just want to play with each other. They want to do things with each other, you know. It's and you know, they wanna
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: communicate the way the kids do. ⁓ and that's that's really that's that's what I took away from the awesome it was.
speaker-0: And sometimes I think we need to look Yeah and sometimes I think we need to sometimes I think we need to look back to our kids and realize that they can be that they can lead us as much as we feel responsible for leading them all the time. That sometimes we if we are open to that and we look back, and I know that that's very difficult as an adult to do. But so a couple things here. One, I want to say like in a world where we talk about title two of the ADA, Title Three of the ADA, Section 508. EAA, and we need to become accessible because we need to conform with these things. And that's the way the world works, right? There's no judgment there. It is refreshing for that simplicity of Ben needs to be included in what we're doing. And we're gonna learn sign language. And we're not in in there was no meeting, Justin, right? These kids didn't meet and decide this. They just started doing it. It just was the path. And then here's the really cool thing, right? Like, like Like Billy Mace, right? Like, but wait, there's more. The school, and this is a huge credit, Campton Elementary, to you all, is the school and the adults in the school, none of this got past them. They saw what was happening and they took that leadership from the kids. And even in assemblies and events and things where Ben wasn't present, the school. School, the adults started signing because the kids were signing and the kids were signing with each other when Ben wasn't around. And so even this requirement that Ben be there and that we do this for Ben, that faded into the background. And they, in the requirement to use American Sign Language, requirement signing the right word, but the desire to use American Sign Language and the desire to practice American Sign Language into the desire to be a community. that can come together and learn to communicate with one in a way that one individual in the community needs was it was incredible. And then just, you know, if you just think about how enriching that is to the kids and and and their learning. And, you know, I at at Seesaw and I sat down with a friend of mine who's deaf and I signed just so people ⁓ understand I'm not great at it, but I have a what I'll call a level of fluency. And I probably had a better level of fluency back ⁓ a while ago when I was more saturated and ⁓ one of the things that we talked about is how we how uncomfortable people are when a person is in the room that only uses sign language. So I'm not talking about a a person who's deaf with a you know who can who can also speak well and read lips well or has a cooking plant or has, you is hard of hearing, could hear. Like there's there's peop there's the kind of this middle ground where people where it's effective, you know, they the the they're ⁓ they can sort of th those people or can be more effective at ⁓ integrating into the hearing community. And it's not I don't mean that as their responsibility. I mean the hearing community more easily accepts them. and we have friends that are like that too. But the more you rely solely on American Sign Language to communicate, the more difficult it is to be accepted into a group of people who are hearing, right? So the the conversation that me and and my friend who Steph, ⁓ Greg, shout out Craig, were having was how do we how do we start to speak to the community and and bridge that gap? And then I turn around and ⁓ the kids, the little kids at Campton Elementary School just did it. They just did it without a discussion, without prompting. So anyways, ⁓ hugely proud of those kids in that school and
speaker-1: Yeah. And you can totally like envision like how it happened. Like maybe two or three kids were like, Hey, we're gonna do this thing and then some other kids saw them doing it and they're like, I wanna learn how to do that. You know? I mean kids just kids mimic and they're so good at it.
speaker-0: And I'm and I'm absolutely sure that when Cheryl and Ben were signing, some kid caught that out of the corner of his eye. And when ⁓ he was playing on the on the ground, you know, Legos or blocks or trucks or whatever they're playing, I don't know, you know, that either Ben signed or the kid picked up a sign from Ben and Cheryl. Something happened where one of the kids was like, I I got this. I saw this. I picked it up, you know. 'cause they're sponges at that age. And ⁓ it went from there. So yeah, it's a great great story. and ⁓ Yeah, just learn from our kids. That's our three stories. That's our three stories, Justin. And Do you have anything any final thoughts before we
speaker-1: No, no, but I it's funny. for some reason all of my social a lot of my social media recently has been including probably just from the conversations you and I have had, ⁓ have been including a lot more like sign language and stuff. ⁓ in like in from like Instagram. There's a woman on Instagram who ⁓ does the sign language for like heavy metal songs and stuff. ⁓ Which is really cool to watch. Like we s I think a lot of people have seen like the videos of like the sign languages, people doing sign language at like rap concerts and stuff like that. ⁓ but ⁓ I'm sure this conversation, because you know our phones are always listening, ⁓ is probably going to just even bring in more of that to my feed. So I'm excited to see that.
speaker-0: Wrong with heavy metal sign language. I love stuff like that too because it just injects some fun and into everything. Sign language is really fun to learn. So I will I will ⁓ shameless plug, like go learn it. And I've got a friend in ⁓ in Florida. ⁓ so if you're in Florida, look up ⁓ Courtney Cannon and I will I'll I'll post a link in this podcast. ⁓ but she does a lot for the community. I think we mentioned her a few podcasts ago, but she does a lot for the community. down there in I'm struggling. I think it's she's in Orlando. I think it's Orlando. ⁓ and teaching people sign language, you know. So ⁓ and then there's ⁓ some great content online. ⁓ there's some great apps. So maybe I'll gather up some resources and throw them in here as well just for if anybody wants to start. And it's the kind of thing like start off with a few signs. You don't have to know, you know, you don't like you don't need to be fluent. Start off with a few signs. Any any step towards accessibility and communication and stuff like that is is a great one. And people appreciate it, you know. People appreciate it. So ⁓ it keep heavy metal signing, Justin.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I need that. I need that that's a good follow. I need that follow from you as well.
speaker-1: ⁓ I s yeah, I sent it I sent it to you.
speaker-0: ⁓ did you? All right. Maybe we'll post that as well. All right. Well, listen, ⁓ we hope that we've honored those that are honoring accessibility. And now that we've broken down accessibility for you, you can help others by keeping it accessible.
speaker-1: Thank you for listening to the Accessibility Breakdown by Inclusion Impact.
speaker-0: Accessibility.
speaker-0: Accessibility. Hey, welcome to the Accessibility Breakdown. I am Mark, and this is.
speaker-1: Justin.
speaker-0: You you always like a just ⁓ a slight delay, Justin. Every week we pay tribute to those that stand out to us as leading by accessibility by picking three topics that strike us in some way. This week we're gonna talk about a simple way to make instructions more accessible. This is an article by Josh Crawford. ⁓ again, one of those subjects that we've we've probably come around to, but we I I really felt this was a a good ⁓ Reminder and some interesting things that Josh talked about. We're also going to talk about increasing accessibility, mindfulness-based practices for autistic folks. And this is written by Brit. You gotta help me with his last name. Alb Albanese. Albanese? Thank you. Or you're just much better at that than Ibanese. Albanese, Britt Albanese. And ⁓ As we know, this is, or as you may or may not know, this is Autism Awareness Month. So this article is really timely for that. ⁓ and it also has some personal connections, ⁓ particularly for Justin, but ⁓ I think for all of us. ⁓ so we're excited to do that one. And then the other thing we're gonna talk about today is there's a really interesting story out of my hometown, hometown, home state, New Hampshire. ⁓ And we're going to be ⁓ talking about this young ⁓ student, ⁓ Ben, that ⁓ who's deaf felt isolated at school and the incredible sort of community story that ⁓ unfolds ⁓ from there. So we'll talk about that. we'll give you more details on that when we get to it. ⁓ so Justin, let's start with a simple way to make instructions more accessible.
speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So this was an interesting article. I mean, this comes up a lot, but this is one of those articles that's very simple to understand, very easy to kind of get into. ⁓ and the number of times that I have to reference color alone ⁓ being an issue or ⁓ position like people referencing like specific positions is it comes up all the time. Time. I almost got ready to say a potty word there. but yeah, it comes up all the time. And ⁓ and so having just a simple set of instructions to remind everyone is it's needed. ⁓ even in this day and age. We've got AI, we've got all these things that are helping us out. And ⁓ but just some simple instructions ⁓ on like not relying on site ⁓ alone. or if you do rely on site, like saying like Hey, ⁓ you know, don't, you know, click the button to the left or, you know, the button is available at the top, you know, in the top right corner. Like people who are unsighted or people maybe that are low vision that have changed the shape of their screen in some way, maybe they're zooming in or something. Right. Those types of waypoints, those type of directional advice isn't going to be as useful for them as it is for someone who is, you know, fully sighted. can kind of scan the page. So
speaker-0: Yeah, you know, articles like this for me, Justin, one of the reasons why I like them is because they they are like you kind of brought up the point that it's like, I don't know how you stated it, but that it's not this isn't like a big complicated issue. It's not a new, like trenchant AI thing. This is goes back to sort of the basics for accessibility. And I think sometimes one, it's a very human issue, right? And I and I think it becomes ⁓ difficult. It's a good example of how it can be difficult for anything. That is automated, AI or whatever, to parse something ⁓ well enough to be like this instruction is not good because of, you know, this is over to you're saying this is over to the right, but but it could be reordered, or somebody with a screen reader is not going to understand because screen readers present the page linearly, where you may be you're viewing like this to this two-dimensional view of the page. Directions like write make sense in that context, but when you're listening or experiencing a linear version of the page, that doesn't make sense, right? And so I think it becomes really difficult to ⁓ it's very human, right? For automation to do it. And the other thing that I really like about this is me being on the phone with people who like I think when you're on the phone with somebody, right, when you're doing your job just Justin, because you're so technical, you're often talking to other people that are. Right. That would be experience back in TPGI, right? You're surrounded, you're in this in this group of technical folks. Whereas I'm oftentimes I may be in that kind of conversation, but I'm I'm oftentimes in a group of people who may not have known what accessibility was, or maybe they kind of understand a screen reader, but not really or didn't know what one was a little while ago. And to have these very understandable examples, and I think this is understandable. So I go like, ⁓ you know, an image doesn't describe You know, a screen reader can't describe an image, so you need alt text. Like that's something a lay person can understand. And then lots of times I'll go into form fields. Like you may have a bunch of, you know, you know that you have to put your first name in this form because like first name is right next to the form field and last name is right next to the form field and so on. But it doesn't mean it reads it out to the screen reader in that order. So imagine it said first name, last name, address, form field, form field, form field. You wouldn't know what to do. So there's a couple of these examples. And I think this is another one. And I don't use this one, but maybe I'm gonna start. But this, and we all deal with directions of one type or another every day. So this idea that yes, in some environments, click the button on the right makes sense. In other environments, or I shouldn't even say in environments, but in in ⁓ the environments that other that people need to navigate, it may not make sense. So if you're the environment you're trying to navigate as one of a screen reader, that may not make sense. So I really appreciated Josh's ⁓ explanation of this. So read the article if you haven't. And I really appreciate the fact that it does bring the importance of accessibility kind of to the surface where it's understandable by a lot of lot of folks. I don't know. That was mine.
speaker-1: No, it is. It is. And it's it's interesting, like as you were kind of talking, like one of the the analogy. I'm a big analogy person. And it's almost every email client these days has ⁓ the way to remind you ⁓ to actually attach an attachment to a file. If you say like, hey, you know, in this file below, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you go to send it and you click send and it's like, hey, you mentioned an attachment. Did you forget to because no one likes having to send that second email?
speaker-0: Saved my life quite a few times. Thank you very much.
speaker-1: Wouldn't it be cool? Wouldn't it be cool if you were like if you're working on a document or you're working particularly like in a PowerPoint presentation or something like that, and you had some way of being able to see like, like, hey, you know, refer to all the red items. And, you know, if you're colorblind, you may not be able to see the red items. That's why we have like contrast issues and color alone as a ⁓ a success criteria. And wouldn't it be cool if like you had something similar to the attachment reminder? that said like, hey, you've got phrasing in here or you you are using color alone or position in order to indicate where something is on the screen. I mean it's just a it's an accessibility check, but it kind of falls in that kind of similar vein.
speaker-0: Yep. Yeah, this is a really good point. Like you could alert that. You could say you're using directional or positioning. You know, are you sure that that's going to be perceivable by everyone? And then the the problem with that too is that like if you're a lay person and you're trying to get accessibility right and then all of a sudden you get that level of feedback, you may not get it. Right. You may be like, What I don't what do you mean? You know, I don't understand. But that's where Josh's article I think comes in. to play is that, you know, if if part of that person's education was was what Josh put together here and the kind of checklist that he ⁓ brings forward, then all of a sudden like, ⁓ okay, that kind of alert would be very, very useful. you know, followed up by by the information in this article. So I agree. And we should just cover a little bit like what what Josh Carford says in in this article is essentially like you need to use not non-positioning language. So if there's a button to be pressed, and I'm gonna forget the ⁓ exact example that he he did, but it needs to say like press the submit button versus press the button on the right, right? So labeling it, and we know labeling and ⁓ is is a big in in sort of all sorts of different contexts is a big deal when it comes to accessibility, but but having that button have a name, have that label. And being able to refer to that versus its position on the page is essentially in a nutshell the the ⁓ way to think about it. Yeah. We good? We good. All right. Thanks, Josh. Appreciate the article. All right. So the next one here that we wanted to talk about was this article by ⁓ I'm gonna say the first name, you say the last name, Britt. Thank you. And ⁓ it's increasing accessibility ⁓ increasing accessibility, colon, mindfulness-based practices for
speaker-1: ⁓ praise.
speaker-0: all autistic folks. And ⁓ like I said at the top, we're excited to have this article to talk about because it is autism awareness month. ⁓ and ⁓ which is an important month because I think it's and we'll talk a little bit about it today, but just the autism awareness means a lot of different things to me. And I'm sure it means even more to you, Justin. ⁓ But essentially This was this was a little bit ⁓ close to me too because I'm a big ⁓ big mindfulness person is what I was about to say. I practice mindfulness like a lot of other ⁓ like a lot of other folks. And ⁓ what people don't realize about n mindfulness, I think, is that it's it can be if I'm using the right word here, but it can alm you have to approach it with caution, right? It can sort of be dangerous and destruction dis destructive. And we're gonna talk a little bit about ⁓ some ⁓ mental health things here as well, or at least at least I am. So just a a fair warning, if that's a trigger for you, you might want to ⁓ fast forward a little bit here. But ⁓ for people with mental health issues, diving into mindfulness can be a little bit difficult and dangerous because all of a sudden you're quietly dealing with some ⁓ difficult thoughts and it does not necessarily mindfulness isn't magic. Right, it doesn't necessarily mean that you're gonna deal with those thoughts well. so in this article with autism, they s sort of talk about how difficult could it could be for a autistic person to fold inward like that. And I'm this is my my words here. And the really interesting thing, and you have some experience with this, Justin. So I'm gonna I'm gonna be quiet and let you talk about it. But the really interesting thing is is that the You don't believe me that I'm gonna be quiet in a minute. You're like, sure you are. We need a signal where you just tell me to shut up and let you talk. ⁓ but anyways, the ⁓ that that and I'm I'm playing with a bottle. This is appropriate because I'm playing with a little fidget thing that I have sitting on my desk. I have ⁓ several of them over here, but one of the things they said is that sometimes to anchor again my words, but to anchor that person with autism. Sometimes they need some sort of external stimuli and that may be a fidget toy to kind of ⁓ in in my mind it was to sort of ground them in the presence a little bit in a different way, other than just relying on their mind to hold them in the present in the present moment, which is what ⁓ a mindfulness is or one type of mindfulness is about, is is really holding your mind in the present moment. So ⁓ so it's just very interesting. I'd never thought about that. And I think that we learn a lot from the different ways people think. And this really struck me as interesting and and and I started to think of curb cutout. Like how does how can I learn from this alternative mind that's not that's not the same as mine. ⁓ but you had I'm gonna flip it over to you, Justin, for for real disease this time, because ⁓ you have some specific experience with this.
speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. ⁓ for the ⁓ for those that don't know me personally, like I have a my oldest son is on the spectrum. He's on HD, which is autism plus ⁓ attention hyperactivity de ADHD. All the he has all of the things. but like when he was in therapy, they used they used this this method of kind of ⁓ external stimuli in order really to kind of kind of quiet some of the other parts of his brain and allow them to have a conversation. And I remember when he first started going, it was, it was weird for me. So his big thing, he's always a big been a big screens kid, but one of the things that he's really gotten into over the past couple of years is composing. ⁓ And so he will spend a lot of time on his phone composing music and like note by note. ⁓ not in garage band or anything like that. He uses like this little MIDI synthesizer. But that's his fidget. That's his way to kind of quiet ⁓ like his brain to focus in on something. And so it was weird to me when he would go into his his sessions and they'd be like, no, no, it's okay. I can bring my phone. It's I'm I'm supposed to. And I didn't understand it until it was explained to me what they were using it for. And so he would go in and he would work on a song. ⁓ while his therapist would ask him questions and stuff like that. And so you know sometimes she kind of has to, you know, ask multiple times, but it helps it gave them a much more productive session, a much more way for him to be mindful of the moment and to to talk about some of the things that he needed to talk about in those sessions. So that was one way that helped him. And but as that article that we read or that we're publishing from ⁓ Albanese ⁓ they are ⁓ it may you know, this may not work for everyone. and but you know, we had some success with it. It was really cool. And so it was kind of I didn't know that that was I thought that was just ⁓ kind of a technique that his therapist had stumbled upon or what I didn't realize that was like a real thing. ⁓ so that was cool to read. So
speaker-0: So this is where the curb cutout effect I think comes in, right? Meaning that your your experience with your son, the this article exposes this notion that sometimes what seems to be a distraction is actually a tool to focus. And it seems like in the case of people who who are autistic, that I'm sure not in every case, but that in some of these cases, that's that's the method. And I'll say a couple things about that. One, so I'm on the opposite end of the autistic autistic spectrum. In in some models, ⁓ autism is on one end of the spectrum. You have sort of a normative middle, and then dyslexia is on the other end. And the reason why it's laid out that way is because dyslexia can be simply defined is if if you're looking at that trouble it causes, right, versus the ⁓ beneficial ways it helps. ⁓ it's it's difficulty sort of getting into the details, right? So people with dyslexia tend to be pretty good with storytelling, but they're very bad at spelling. So it's that detail. Big picture, great detail. And this is a simplistic one aspect here. So don't get too but whereas with autism, Oftentimes you have the opposite occur where, you know, you've got the people with autism who hear a song and then can play it no for no, right? Because they're they're sharp in those details. But ⁓ maybe they struggle socially because they're harder navigating that big picture, right? And again, I'm this is this is me editorializing. So ⁓ if you've got different experiences, don't don't beat me up here. ⁓ but I also so I have dyslexia and I have ⁓ ADD. And one of the things I often do is I listen to a podcast when I'm trying to stay focused on a simpler task, one that's sort of more repetitive, because it keeps me focused. And ⁓ I had and because of this experience, I had an employee who was on the autistic spectrum. And they were ⁓ worried one day because I had made a comment that exposed the fact that they weren't looking at the camera and that they were doing something. They were fidgeting below them and that what they were doing is doodling. And they went into a panic because of past experiences with managers who had accused them of not paying attention in a similar situation. And they were like, ⁓ I ⁓ it'll never happen again, blah, blah, blah. And I Hold up. What were you doing? And they said, I was doodling. And I said, that's what I thought you were doing. And I said, and I assumed you were doing it to hold your attention on the conversation. And they said, that's exactly what I was doing. They were all the person was almost surprised. and then we had a great conversation about it. It ended up being a great moment and a great opportunity to understand each other and all that kind of thing. But ⁓ so the question is, is like, you know, what other ways is that to similar experience helpful? all sorts of people. It val I value it as somebody on the opposite end end of that spectrum. ⁓ and then also just to hold in our heads this idea that people people's brains work differently and we can't assume. We can't assume our experience is the same as somebody else's experience. And what I wanted to do, J Justin, because you know, we're digital accessibility people and I think people listening to this podcast might be like, okay, what does this have to do with digital accessibility? And the One of the things that struck me, right? We pick out things that that strike us. One of the things that struck me is why it is important that we keep focusing on how on on how we do create rules around ⁓ around ⁓ what what's the word I'm looking for? The neur well, neurodivergent. neurodivergence in terms of the ⁓ you know, like the wick it's one of the areas in digital accessibility I think is the hardest that we've done have done probably
speaker-1: Okay.
speaker-0: have not gotten as far down the road. Like if if we're, you know, for people who are blind, for people who are deaf, it's a little ⁓ easier to understand how to accommodate, but we've struggled ⁓ trying to figure out how to accommodate for people who are neurodivergent. And it just highlights the things that we do have like distractions on the site. And because somebody fidgets to stay focused doesn't mean that the flashing lights in the ad off to the site are gonna help, right? Those are probably going to be a distraction or or the fact that we need to write, ⁓ you know, create sites that are consistent from page to page to page because of this difficulty ⁓ of focusing. So to me, it just sort of highlighted the importance, one, that we keep exploring how to do this, and two, the ⁓ things that we do have in place are very, very important, I think, or the things we do understand right now are very, very
speaker-1: Yeah, exactly.
speaker-0: And I think we could go on. I could go on. I've got more stories, but we're gonna in the interest of time, let's let's move I know, J Justin's like, I'm the one with the k kid who's got autism.
speaker-1: You were the storyteller. So
speaker-0: That's right. I'm the ⁓ the story. That's right. Respect my ⁓ my dyslexia. No, I'm just kidding. ⁓ okay, so I love this next story. I absolutely love it. And I love it to the point where I don't know what to do with it, right? Because I want to do something with it. And ⁓ it is so your comment to me before we got on and heated up the mics. was you're when I g 'cause I gave this to you to read and you're like, ⁓ that's just dust in my eye, right? It is that kind of story where it feels so good and it gives you so much faith.
speaker-1: Yep. This is one of those, like for anyone that watches like CBS Sunday morning, ⁓ like this is one of those like feel good kind of like stories that you're like, you know, by the end it's narrated in a very calm, soothing voice.
speaker-0: Yeah, and in in listen, this is not adults here. This is children being better leaders, being being naturally just gravitating towards what's right in a way that I think as we get older our adults can can struggle with. So I'm not gonna delay any further. So this comes out of my home state. New Hampshire. ⁓ and this is a story, ⁓ it was covered by a bunch of people. We'll probably link you out to the CBS News article on it. ⁓ and it was it's ⁓ from Camp Campton, New Hampshire, so Campton Elementary School. And this ⁓ young man named Ben, and I just wrote Ben down, so we probably should ⁓ Ben O'Reilly. O'Reilly's his last name. Who is who's deaf and he's mainstreamed, which means he's put into the education system with ⁓ other students. So ⁓ in this small New Hampshire town, he's the only deaf student, and he has this wonderful aid aide, Cheryl. I can't I can't do the last name. U L I C N Y. This is my thing. No last name mark. and ⁓ ⁓ Ben started to ⁓ kind of express, as you would expect, like feelings of isolation. It's you know, it's difficult. ⁓ There's no way around it, right? Like if you're the only deaf student in a s in a school full of hearing people, there's gonna be challenges. And I think that ⁓ and this is me reading into this, but I think that there's a lot of credit given to Cheryl here for really ⁓ working with Ben and and being a great advocate and and and friend and everything. But the story here is that unprompted, unprompted, Ben's classmates started to learn sign language and started to sign with Ben. And they started in when you ⁓ when you ⁓ like I've looked at some of the interviews online that are that the people recorded with these kids and they're like well If you want to play with Ben, you need to know how to talk to Ben. And we wanted to play with Ben. He's, you know, like, and I'm like I'm make I'm again I'm I'm not this is not for Baitum, but they're saying things like Ben was our friend and we wanted to play with him. And so we learned sign language. Like like just as a as a matter of fact as it could be, and it's so simple. It is so simple. But ⁓ Ben was in an environment where he was struggling. The people in that vi environment. were welcoming and perceived the barrier that Ben had and was perceiving and worked with Ben to close it.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: Like
speaker-1: Kids kids are amazing. And yeah. ⁓ I don't know. I kids are one of the like like I feel like we're the ones that kind of screw up kids long term by projecting our own kind of things onto them. But kids themselves, like like you put like two kids in a room, like they just want to play with each other. They want to do things with each other, you know. It's and you know, they wanna
speaker-0: Yeah.
speaker-1: communicate the way the kids do. ⁓ and that's that's really that's that's what I took away from the awesome it was.
speaker-0: And sometimes I think we need to look Yeah and sometimes I think we need to sometimes I think we need to look back to our kids and realize that they can be that they can lead us as much as we feel responsible for leading them all the time. That sometimes we if we are open to that and we look back, and I know that that's very difficult as an adult to do. But so a couple things here. One, I want to say like in a world where we talk about title two of the ADA, Title Three of the ADA, Section 508. EAA, and we need to become accessible because we need to conform with these things. And that's the way the world works, right? There's no judgment there. It is refreshing for that simplicity of Ben needs to be included in what we're doing. And we're gonna learn sign language. And we're not in in there was no meeting, Justin, right? These kids didn't meet and decide this. They just started doing it. It just was the path. And then here's the really cool thing, right? Like, like Like Billy Mace, right? Like, but wait, there's more. The school, and this is a huge credit, Campton Elementary, to you all, is the school and the adults in the school, none of this got past them. They saw what was happening and they took that leadership from the kids. And even in assemblies and events and things where Ben wasn't present, the school. School, the adults started signing because the kids were signing and the kids were signing with each other when Ben wasn't around. And so even this requirement that Ben be there and that we do this for Ben, that faded into the background. And they, in the requirement to use American Sign Language, requirement signing the right word, but the desire to use American Sign Language and the desire to practice American Sign Language into the desire to be a community. that can come together and learn to communicate with one in a way that one individual in the community needs was it was incredible. And then just, you know, if you just think about how enriching that is to the kids and and and their learning. And, you know, I at at Seesaw and I sat down with a friend of mine who's deaf and I signed just so people ⁓ understand I'm not great at it, but I have a what I'll call a level of fluency. And I probably had a better level of fluency back ⁓ a while ago when I was more saturated and ⁓ one of the things that we talked about is how we how uncomfortable people are when a person is in the room that only uses sign language. So I'm not talking about a a person who's deaf with a you know who can who can also speak well and read lips well or has a cooking plant or has, you is hard of hearing, could hear. Like there's there's peop there's the kind of this middle ground where people where it's effective, you know, they the the they're ⁓ they can sort of th those people or can be more effective at ⁓ integrating into the hearing community. And it's not I don't mean that as their responsibility. I mean the hearing community more easily accepts them. and we have friends that are like that too. But the more you rely solely on American Sign Language to communicate, the more difficult it is to be accepted into a group of people who are hearing, right? So the the conversation that me and and my friend who Steph, ⁓ Greg, shout out Craig, were having was how do we how do we start to speak to the community and and bridge that gap? And then I turn around and ⁓ the kids, the little kids at Campton Elementary School just did it. They just did it without a discussion, without prompting. So anyways, ⁓ hugely proud of those kids in that school and
speaker-1: Yeah. And you can totally like envision like how it happened. Like maybe two or three kids were like, Hey, we're gonna do this thing and then some other kids saw them doing it and they're like, I wanna learn how to do that. You know? I mean kids just kids mimic and they're so good at it.
speaker-0: And I'm and I'm absolutely sure that when Cheryl and Ben were signing, some kid caught that out of the corner of his eye. And when ⁓ he was playing on the on the ground, you know, Legos or blocks or trucks or whatever they're playing, I don't know, you know, that either Ben signed or the kid picked up a sign from Ben and Cheryl. Something happened where one of the kids was like, I I got this. I saw this. I picked it up, you know. 'cause they're sponges at that age. And ⁓ it went from there. So yeah, it's a great great story. and ⁓ Yeah, just learn from our kids. That's our three stories. That's our three stories, Justin. And Do you have anything any final thoughts before we
speaker-1: No, no, but I it's funny. for some reason all of my social a lot of my social media recently has been including probably just from the conversations you and I have had, ⁓ have been including a lot more like sign language and stuff. ⁓ in like in from like Instagram. There's a woman on Instagram who ⁓ does the sign language for like heavy metal songs and stuff. ⁓ Which is really cool to watch. Like we s I think a lot of people have seen like the videos of like the sign languages, people doing sign language at like rap concerts and stuff like that. ⁓ but ⁓ I'm sure this conversation, because you know our phones are always listening, ⁓ is probably going to just even bring in more of that to my feed. So I'm excited to see that.
speaker-0: Wrong with heavy metal sign language. I love stuff like that too because it just injects some fun and into everything. Sign language is really fun to learn. So I will I will ⁓ shameless plug, like go learn it. And I've got a friend in ⁓ in Florida. ⁓ so if you're in Florida, look up ⁓ Courtney Cannon and I will I'll I'll post a link in this podcast. ⁓ but she does a lot for the community. I think we mentioned her a few podcasts ago, but she does a lot for the community. down there in I'm struggling. I think it's she's in Orlando. I think it's Orlando. ⁓ and teaching people sign language, you know. So ⁓ and then there's ⁓ some great content online. ⁓ there's some great apps. So maybe I'll gather up some resources and throw them in here as well just for if anybody wants to start. And it's the kind of thing like start off with a few signs. You don't have to know, you know, you don't like you don't need to be fluent. Start off with a few signs. Any any step towards accessibility and communication and stuff like that is is a great one. And people appreciate it, you know. People appreciate it. So ⁓ it keep heavy metal signing, Justin.
speaker-1: Yeah.
speaker-0: And I need that. I need that that's a good follow. I need that follow from you as well.
speaker-1: ⁓ I s yeah, I sent it I sent it to you.
speaker-0: ⁓ did you? All right. Maybe we'll post that as well. All right. Well, listen, ⁓ we hope that we've honored those that are honoring accessibility. And now that we've broken down accessibility for you, you can help others by keeping it accessible.
speaker-1: Thank you for listening to the Accessibility Breakdown by Inclusion Impact.
speaker-0: Accessibility.
