AccessSTEM

According to the website for the Americans with Disabilities Act:

The Americans with Disabilities Act gives civil rights protections to individuals with disabilities similar to those provided to individuals on the basis of race, color, sex, national origin, age, and religion. It guarantees equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities in public accommodations, employment, transportation, State and local government services, and telecommunications.

Nemeth Code is a special type of braille used for math and science notations. It was developed in 1946 by Dr. Abraham Nemeth as part of his doctoral studies in mathematics. In 1952, the Braille Authority of North America (BANA) accepted Nemeth Code as the standard code for representing math and science expressions in braille. With Nemeth Code, one can render all mathematical and technical documents into six-dot braille, including expressions in these areas:

Despite the national focus on math education over the past several years, American students' math skills still lag behind their peers from other industrialized countries. The low math skills of the nation's 6.5 million students with disabilities is even more problematic. Results from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show there is great disparity between the math skills of students with disabilities and students without disabilities.

The following publication content was developed through a joint project between AccessIT and the ADA and IT Technical Assistance Centers.

Mathematics and science are disciplines that have historically communicated ideas visually. This is especially true of formulas and equations, where relationships between parts are understood by their spacial relationship to one another. Communicating these same ideas to people who are unable to see poses significant challenges. However, a variety of solutions exist.

According to the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the 2015-2016 school year 19% of undergraduates in the United State reported having a disability.

The Foundation for Science and Disability (FSD) is a nonprofit organization whose members work to

Research has shown that one of the best predictors of whether or not a person will enter postsecondary education and complete a college degree has been his or her participation in math and science courses during middle and high school. In fact, participation in these types of courses has been shown to more strongly correlate with postsecondary degree completion than high school test scores or grade point averages. It has also been reported that students who take more math and science courses typically have higher SAT scores and, four years later, higher scores on the GRE.

There are many places to explore grants available for projects that serve to increase the representation of individuals with disabilities in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) fields, including the following:

Historically, the World Wide Web has not provided a simple means for presenting math content online. Mathematicians and scientists typically use software such as TeX and LaTeX for typesetting complex formulas and then convert these formulas to images for presentation online.