Accessible Textbooks

Accessible textbooks come in several forms, these include, Braille, various digital forms, including audio, large print, and etext.  

Over the past decade, etext has become the primary alternate format for accessible textbooks in today's classrooms because of the versatility and flexibility it offers.  The cost of digital scanning equipment and software has dramatically decreased over the past decade and this form of technology has become common place in schools.  Etext can come as WORD, RTF, ASCII and HTML formats and can be highlighted and read aloud by synthetic speech on nearly any computer.  Etext can be instantly increased in size, preferential color schemes can be applied, and letters, words, phrases, sentences, paragraphs, and sections can be sequentially highlighted as the text is read aloud.  

Benefits of Accessible Textbooks: 

Accessible textbooks offer benefits in the classroom for a wide range of students, including those with visual impairments, students with physical disabilities, students with learning disabilities, students who are deaf or hard of hearing, and students with cognitive impairments.   Accessible, flexible alternative versions of curriculum materials can increase engagement, attention, and achievement of all students by offering adjustable levels of complexity, novelty, and mixed media.  Many state's "Braille Laws" require textbook publishers to provide digital files compatible for Braille transcription free of charge.  For students with physical disabilities, including issues with dexterity, digital files with a more accessible structure, including special layout and navigation structure with an emphasis on key terms and points of the text (bolded) can be more easily navigated using voice control, eye gaze, head pointer, single-switch access or keyboard.  For students with learning disabilities, audio versions can help some students keep pace with their typical peers and increase their independent use of core curriculum resources.  For students with hearing impairments, digital files allow for the creation of both signed and text versions of the same instructional content.  For students with cognitive impairments and traumatic brain injuries accessible texts offer the ability to transform text from one modality to another and to customize the display of a page into discreet and manageable chunks to help focus the attention of students who are often easily distracted.