When you edit audio, video, or transcripts of recorded conversations, this raises some ethical questions — especially within disability advocacy communities. I understand that editing the audio and transcripts for The Autistic Me Podcast concerns some advocates. They have valid concerns that editing the audio and/or transcripts removes the authentic…
Category: Accessibility
Posts on the accessibility of physical and virtual spaces.
This special issue of Kairos was released in 2002: http://kairos.technorhetoric.net/7.1/coverweb.html And now, in 2018, I’m still presenting on the need for natural accommodations in writing courses. We have made little progress, sadly, in either our physical or online spaces. Often, there is resistance to adjustments, such as transcripts or captioning of…
Editing the transcripts for The Autistic Me Podcast was a cruel reminder that I need new glasses. The automatic transcription service Descript using AI, which means the transcription is imperfect. Plus, I edit the transcripts for clarity because I believe verbatim transcripts often impede understanding. I’ve needed glasses since a winter in…
Atypical students are, at least according to current data, attracted to the STEM fields. Neurodiverse individuals feel safer in those academic and professional fields with concrete questions and problems, with clear approaches to best answers. Autism is, by definition, a concrete form of processing information and a communication disorder. We think differently…
Required college composition courses often serve a gatekeeping function, ensuring that only the right sort of students advance towards degrees. Though anecdotal, every campus course-related hearing I’ve been involved in as an expert on autism and neurodiversity was a writing course. These were not always first-year composition, but they were…
Autistic students and their parents contact me all-too-often about writing courses at colleges and universities. For some reason, writing pedagogies (the theories and methods instructors embrace) prove particularly problematic for students with disabilities. Writing courses are tailored for the “normal” students, those without any physical, cognitive, or mental health challenges. Much…
The situation, which represents at least three or four emails I receive per school year: A student requests exemptions from collaborative assignments and participation grades. The professor declines. Disability studies office asks me what the right solution is to this conflict. More often than I would like, this occurs in…
College and university disability offices often ask me to address the issue of assignment deadlines and test accommodations for autistic students and those with other “invisible” disabilities. Professors and instructors often decline to offer deadline extensions and test accommodations, arguing that such adjustments unfairly benefit students with special needs. If…
Winter is a topic I post on, well, every winter. It is a tough time of year for me, but at least it makes spring and summer all the better. Though I don’t like winter, the reality is I also miss our neighborhood from Minnesota and the trips into Wisconsin.…
We should carefully consider when trying to make everything accessible gets in the way of making things useful. The challenge of designing for equal opportunity and access to information (and entertainment) leads to some choices that impede the reception of important information. The detailed supplemental captions available for some movies…