- A-Z to Deafblindness provides information and resources for the deafblind.
- Action on Hearing Loss – formerly the Royal National Institute of the Deaf (RNID) [UK]
- Alexander Graham Bell Association for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing (AG Bell) helps families, health care providers, and education professionals understand childhood hearing loss and the importance of early diagnosis and intervention. Through advocacy, education, research, and financial aid, AG Bell helps to ensure that every child and adult with hearing loss has the opportunity to listen, talk, and thrive. Financial aid programs are available for families at every stage of raising their hearing-disabled child. Updated
- Financial Aid Programs and Scholarships
- Additional Scholarship Program Information Fact Sheet (229 kb .pdf) In addition to the scholarships provided by AG Bell, there are a number of resources each student should consider.
- AG Bell College Scholarships
- ALS Pah! an e-zine for American Sign Language students and teachers
- American Auditory Society
- American Sign Language Fingerspelling dictionary, converters, quiz
- American Speech-Language-Hearing Association
- American Tinnitus Association (ATA) ATA is a global leader in the effort to find a cure for tinnitus. We bring together patients, researchers, healthcare professionals, industry partners and lawmakers to develop tinnitus management tools and fund vital tinnitus research.
- ALS Online Lessons
- Apple® Accessibility Features Vision built into all Macintosh computers provides adjustable keyboard, an ergonomic mouse, CloseView screen magnification software, Easy Access system software (StickyKeys, SlowKeys, MouseKeys), electronic documentation, key-repeat disable, text-to-speech synthesis and voice recognition (PlainTalk), sticky mouse, and visual alert cues. The VoiceOver spoken English interface for Mac OS X is a fully integrated, built-in screen reader technology providing access to the Macintosh through speech, audible cues, and keyboard navigation.
- Assistech Special Needs products for special needs such as deaf and hard of hearing, blind and low vision, medical health, mobility and dexterity, and more
- Auditory Disabilities from WebAIM describes the types of auditory disabilities.
- Canadian Hearing Society [Ontario, Canada]
- CaptionSync from Automatic Sync Technologies. Funded in part by an SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) grant, AST pioneered the most cost-efficient, high quality, automatic captioning service available today. CaptionSync delivers all time-coded captioning file formats to you in minutes all from one, single submission. [UK]
- Described and Captioned Media Program (DCMP) provides all persons who are deaf or hard of hearing awareness of and equal access to communication and learning through the use of free captioned educational media and supportive collateral materials
- Deaf Blogs Updated
- The Limping Chicken, The world’s most popular deaf blog! Laying eggs since 2012 [UK] New
- 13 Cool New Gadgets to Help With Hearing
- Deafness in Disguise: Concealed Hearing Devices of the 19th and 20th Centuries
- Hearing aids: How to choose the right one from the Mayo Clinic New
- What are digital hearing aids? from the ReSound New
- Types of Hearing Aids from the FDA New
- Gallaudet University: Types of Financial Aid This is a short listing of financial resources that you can use to seek out funding for your Gallaudet education. Gallaudet University is the world leader in liberal education and career development for deaf and hard of hearing students. The University enjoys an international reputation for its outstanding programs and for the quality of the research it conducts on the history, language, culture, and other topics related to deaf people. Updated
- Hearing Loss Association of America (HLAA) formerly known as Self Help for Hard of Hearing (SHHH) People, Inc.
- Maryland Relay a telecommunications service helping people who are deaf, hard of hearing, deafblind or speech disabled to easily communicate through TTY (text telephone) with anyone using a standard phone
- Media Access Group at WGBHdevelops and distributes captioning, video description, and MoPix means of access to movies and television for viewers who are deaf or hard of hearing. WGBH started addressing access barrier challenges back in the seventies, when they invented closed captioning; that was just the beginning. Updated
"We continue to pioneer new solutions to ensure that everyone can benefit from innovations in media. To make media more accessible, we're setting captioning standards on every new device and technology that comes along and have developed free software to let anyone caption anything. We've given people with visual impairments the chance to experience an eclipse in real time through descriptive narration (another WGBH invention), enjoy TV via audio descriptions, and access the content that informs our everyday lives."
- National Captioning Institute
- National Center on Accessible Educational Materials (NCAEM) For students with sensory, physical, cognitive, or learning differences and their teachers, accessible instructional materials (AIM) may open doors to teaching and learning that ordinary print-based materials have closed. Accessible instructional materials or AIM are specialized formats of curricular content that can be used by and with students who are unable to read or use standard print materials. Specialized formats include braille, audio, large print, and digital text. The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) includes a requirement that schools provide AIM in a timely manner to K–12 students who need them for participation and achievement.
- National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), Voice, Speech, Language
- Nicaraguan Sign Language Projects, Inc.
- Oticon hearing care solutions
- List of Languages Updated
- Sign Language Dictionary Online
- Sign Languages of the World, Search by Country from Gallaudet University Library
- SignWriting
- Tinnitus (ringing in the ear)
- Surgical implants and nonsurgical solutions: Cochlear Implant (CI), Electric Acoustic Stimulation (EAS), Bone Conduction Implant (BONEBRIDGE), and Bone Conduction System (ADHEAR) New
Tag: auditory
Internet Accessibility
Web Accessibility problems may involve
- Cognitive
- Reading disorders, learning disabilities, reading disabilities, thinking, remembering, sequencing disabilities, and Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD). Useability will be enhanced with illustrations, good graphics, organized content with headings, and visual cues for navigation.
- Hearing
- Deafness and hard of hearing. Users may need assistive technology to read audio transcripts or view fully captioned multimedia content.
- Motor
- Physical disabilities, lack of a digit or hand, epilepsy, or short stature. Users may have limited strength, reach or manipulation, tremor, lack of sensation, inability to use a mouse, slow response time, or lack of fine muscle control. Users may need to use assistive technology to adapt the computer interface to their disability such as mouth sticks to type keyboard commands; eye-tracking software that uses eye movement for computer commands; height control for desktops, chairs, and keyboards; keyboards with raised ridges in-between the keys; and voice input.
- Speech
- Voice input, speech output, inability to speak, stutter, strong foreign accent, or speech impediment. Users may require an environmental noise filter to hear correctly, high quality noise-cancellation technology of the sound card and/or microphone, a faster CPU with enough memory for processing the speech without slowing it down, the ability to enter foreign words and phrases, technical and scientific terms, or other speech that is easily recognized by the software, or the user needs to pause mid-sentence to catch his/her breath or read from a manuscript.
- Visual
- Blindness, low vision, color-blindness, and lack of color perception. Users may require the use of a screen-reader application to feed Braille or text-to-speech browsers. Screen-reader applications read a Web page one line at a time, horizontally across the page. Screen readers may also be used by sighted users who don’t have sound on their computer or who don’t want to turn sound on in public places such as airplanes, libraries, or office cubicles.
- Combination of disabilities
- Deafblindness. Users may need a variety of input and output devices.
The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that there are 750 million people with disabilities world wide. According to the U.S. Census, 54 million of these live in the United States and about 25 million of these have difficulty accessing the Internet. It is estimated that this population in the U.S. controls a discretionary income over $175 billion annually. Therefore, people with disabilities can have a powerful economic impact on several segments of the economy. With the aging Baby Boomers, these numbers will increase accessibility needs and their affluence will have a strong affect on market share for accessible devices and business’ return on investment (ROI) to provide accessible products and work environments.
Reference Books and Resources
There are several excellent books about creating and maintaining accessible Web pages. See the suggested reading list for general information and detailed reference books for your library that relate to the accessibility and usability of Web pages.
Find more resources using the Areas of Focus Internet Accessibility category search.