College

Background

My name is Maria and I am a distance learning instructor at a community college. A student who is blind enrolled in my course and told me that some of the content was inaccessible.

Access Issue

Specifically, the student pointed out that some course content was embedded in graphics images that she could not access using her text-to-speech system.

Solution

I added text descriptions for all of the graphics images in my course.

Conclusions

This case demonstrates the following:

Background

My name is Allison and I'm a chemistry major. I am hard of hearing and wear hearing aids in both ears.

Background

My name is Roberto and I am a premedical student majoring in biology. I have a severe-to-profound bilateral hearing loss and use hearing aids and speech reading (watching the movement of a person's lips) to maximize my communication skills. I have some knowledge of American Sign Language but not enough to effectively use a sign language interpreter as an accommodation.

Background

My name is Hien and I am a fourth-year medical student preparing for rotations. I have a heart condition that requires a pacemaker and I cannot be within 20 feet of microwaves, but my rotation sites may put me in proximity to medical microwaves.

Access Issue

Completing the rotation may expose me to unsafe levels of microwaves. I want to be safe, but I also want to be able to keep my disability confidential while maintaining the widest possible selection of rotation sites.

Background

I am a computer science major, and my name is Sean. I have a psychiatric condition called Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD). I was first diagnosed in grade school by a child psychiatrist. I also have some social phobias and physical tics, but the OCD is what most affects my academic work. I take medication that controls some of my symptoms.

The Gill Advanced Learning Laboratory (GALL) at Lamar University provides a unique science learning environment for students with disabilities. It is funded in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation's Research in Disabilities Education (RDE) program.

Background

My name is Lisa. I am a full-time graduate student majoring in women's studies. I have a seizure disorder.

Access Issue

I began experiencing an increase in the frequency of my seizures as a result of the glare from the computer screens used in the computer lab. Therefore, I could not use the campus computers for assignments or research.

Background

My name is Keisha and I am a student at a small Midwestern college. I am blind. My college converted from a telephone registration system to an online registration system. They determined that it was not economically feasible to maintain both systems and discontinued the phone system.

Access Issue

The web-based system my college chose is not accessible to screen readers. Without the phone system I had no way to register for my classes.

Background

My name is Nana. I'm a second-year student at a small, private four-year engineering/technical college, with engineering as my major. I have quadriplegia and use a power wheelchair for mobility. I have enough use of my hands to write and use a standard computer keyboard and mouse.

Background

My name is Marika and I'm a math major in college. I'm visually impaired. I can read large print but have trouble seeing the content on a computer screen, especially when the lighting is poor. For the most part, I am able to read large-print text without any problems.